What is a better example of America's cultural diversity than the ways various ethnic groups celebrate Yuletide?
We have Santa Claus bearing gifts on Christmas Eve, Boxing Day, Three Kings Day, the "eight crazy nights of Hanukkah", Kwanza, and the Wall Street Bonus Jubilee. The first five require us to be "good little boys and girls" to receive gifts. Wall Street largess comes to us irregardless provided that we are "too big to fail". Greed is good, indeed.
There are cultural differences even within the same tradition. A time-honored tradition is leaving a snack for Santa on Christmas Eve. This means milk and cookies and perhaps a carrot for the reindeer for most Americans, but not for all.
The local PBS TV station is currently conducting yet another Pledge Drive. It is re-broadcasting some of its "greatest hits" to energize its donors. Among these is "Eastern Europeans In Pennsylvania", a celebration of Slavic culture. A lady from Wilkes-Barre noted that her Polish tradition was to leave kielbasa and beer for Santa on Christmas Eve, As a child, she was amazed that her Welsh, Irish, and German classmates left milk and cookies for the Jolly Old Elf.
As a survivor of the gastronomical ravages of homemade kielbasa, I am not surprised that sausage and beer for Santa is a dying tradition. Authentic kielbasa is not the fresh, lightly-spiced stuff found in supermarkets today. The genuine article is fatty meat combined with significant quantities of horseradish and garlic, encased in pig intestines, drawn through a cow's horn, smoked and aged to a wrinkled, potent sausage that will keep you dancing the polka for hours on end. And it's impossible to digest unless you've been raised on the stuff.
If Good Saint Nick had to consume real kielbasa at every house in Wilkes-Barre, he would be laid low with gastric distress before he ever got to Scranton, let alone the Lehigh Valley. Thousands of children would be disappointed on Christmas morn.
Diversity is good. We should respect the traditions of our neighbors. Still, let it go, Wilkes-Barre! Think of the children!
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