How to Celebrate a Vietnamese Christmas and New Year

Christmas and New Year's Day are two of the four most important holidays in Vietnam. The other notable celebrations include the birthday of Buddha and the midautumn festival.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Christmas Gifts
• Christmas Tree Lights
• Christmas Trees
• Paints
• Tree Stands
• Christmas Puddings

1. Decorate a Christmas tree in your home according to the European custom.

2. Plan to attend a midnight Mass on Christmas Eve if you're Christian and this is part of your family's tradition.

3. Prepare a Christmas dinner to serve when the service ends. Include foods like chicken soup, turkey and Christmas pudding.

4. Remind your children to leave their shoes out to be filled with gifts; Santa Claus will come and perform this task during the night.

5. Begin your preparations for "Tet," which is the first morning of the seven-day celebration of the new year.

6. Clean your home and paint it to get rid of bad fortune and give it a new look.

7. Buy new clothes and shoes for the upcoming celebration.

8. Eat traditional rice cakes on the last day of the old year. These are pork and green bean cakes covered with leaves; they're made from special rice.

9. Plan "Le Tru Tich," which is a midnight ceremony on New Year's Eve with loud noise to usher out the old and welcome in the new year.

10. Remember that everything you do on New Year's Day will determine your luck for the next 12 months. Therefore, avoid people in mourning and don't let your children fight or get into trouble.

11. Exchange gifts with family members and pay your respects to the Kitchen God.

Tips & Warnings

• Remember that the date of Vietnamese New Year varies from year to year.
• Understand that traditional Vietnamese religions are Buddhism and the Chinese philosophies of Taoism and Confucianism. Today, however, many people are also Christians.
• Using firecrackers during the Le Tru Tich celebration is no longer allowed in Vietnam.
• Vietnam is a country with many cultural influences, so Christmas traditions can be diverse and cannot be generalized. The preceding steps represent a few examples of local traditions that may or may not be appropriate for your personal celebration of Christmas.

[Alathia]

on 6/6/2007 Not everyone who is Vietnamese celebrates Christmas, but EVERYONE who is Vietnamese celebrates Tet (lunar new year). They are two separate and different celebrations, at two separate and different times. Tet occurs anytime from late January to early February following the lunar calendar.