Picture from “Hearth & Homes” Creative Publishing International 2001

Canada and the United States - According to the University of Illinois' web site German settlers migrated from the United States to Canada in the 1700's. One of the many cherished Christmas traditions they took with them was the Christmas tree.

Britain - Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's German husband, put up a Christmas tree in the Windsor Castle in 1848 and soon the tradition there became widespread.

Greenland - The tree does not grow in Greenland so is imported and then decorated with candles and bright ornaments.

Guatemala - Because of the large German population residing in Guatemala the Christmas tree has become tradition here along with the “Nacimiento” or Nativity Scene. Although gifts are placed under the tree on Christmas Eve for the children, parents and adults do not exchange theirs until New Year's Day.

Finland - From early accounts we can establish that in 1829 Helsinki nobleman; Baron Klinkowstrom had eight Christmas trees decorated in his home. The first recorded Finnish decorated outdoor Christmas tree stood in the Pietarsaari in 1905. In 1954 Helsinki donated a Christmas tree to the Belgian city of Brussels.

Brazil - In Brazil citizens are creative enough to take tiny pieces of snow and place them on a pine tree to represent falling snow.

Ireland - Throughout December trees are purchased and decorated with brightly colored lights, tinsel and baubles. The top is usually reserved for either a star or an angel.

Sweden - Although the trees are purchased well before Christmas they are generally not taken inside until just days prior to Christmas and then the Evergreen tree is decorated with stars, sunbursts and snowflakes made from straw. The straw is thought to bring luck for good crops, and there is one other difference with the Christmas tree celebration in Sweden, according to http://www.pickyourownchristmastree.org/global.php the tree must stay up until precisely 12 days after Christmas. At this site there is a wealth of information regarding choosing and caring for your Christmas tree. This site also offers a variety of Christmas tree farms, hayrides, sleigh rides, holiday recipes, and various other winter fun.

By Roger Lynn on Flickr

Norway - The tree was not introduced into Norway until the last half of the nineteenth century and a beautiful ritual surrounds the tree. On Christmas Eve the children are left outside the living room while the parents decorate the tree. Once the tree is decorated they join the family in “circling the Christmas tree”. They all join hands circling the tree and sing carols and they walk around. Afterwards the gifts are distributed.

Ukraine - Fir trees are decorated and parties enjoyed, with Christmas being a very popular time of the year. According to the book According to the book “A Christmas Treasury”2000, “every Christmas tree has a spider and a web for good luck.” The story is that long ago a poor woman had nothing to put on the tree for children. When they awoke on Christmas morning the tree glistened with spider's webs that had turned silver in the rising sun.

By Nikolay.Zavad on Flickr

Czechoslovakia - Trees are decorated with intricately carved designs on egg shells.

By bcompetent on Flickr

Italy - Miniature carvings of the Holy family are placed in a wooden triangle. This is beautifully decorated with colored paper, gilt pine cones, candles, and miniature colored flags or pennants. Small gifts are placed on the shelves above the manger, and a star or miniature doll may be found at the peek. This wooden pyramid may be several feet high and is built in the tradition of the Christmas tree. It is called a ceppo, and in some homes

each child has their own.

www.italiansrus.com

Germany - It is believed that long ago Martin Luther brought a fir tree into his home to celebrate Christmas when he was inspired by watching the star light shining through a fir tree. Because he found the beauty so remarkable, he cut the tree down and took it home to share with his wife. He then decorated the tree to resemble the beautiful sight he had seen in the Christmas sky.

There is another legend regarding the origination of the Christmas tree. This legend believes the Germans combined two customs which were practiced in different areas of the world. One referred to the “Paradise tree” which was decorated to resemble the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. This was a fir tree decorated with apples. The second tradition was a decorated triangular shaped frame. It was decorated with glass balls, tinsel and candle topped it.

The Tannenbaum (Christmas tree) is laden down with Christmas delights such as cookies, nuts and various gifts, along with ornaments, lights and tinsel, and generally secretly decorated by the mother.

By Markus Moning on Flickr

Saudi Arabia - According to the information obtained here, Christmas trees are generally hid and Christmas, if celebrated, is celebrated in private.

Philippines - The cost of pine trees here is somewhat cost prohibitive, but handmade trees in a large array of sizes and colors are used for celebrating Christmas. Tassels are placed on the points of the tree to represent the Star of the Bethlehem.

Trees are also decorated with rice paper or cellophane.

China - the Christmas tree is referred to as a “tree of light” and decorated with spangles, paper chains, flowers, and lanterns.

Japan - Here Christmas trees are highly decorated with small toys, dolls, paper ornaments, lanterns, gold paper fans, miniature candles, origami swans (or a folded “bird of peace”), and wind chimes. The origami swan is exchanged as a pledge that war must never happen again.

By Himanshu (Mum…on Flickr

By Dayana Souza on Flickr

While there are many documented traditions involving Christmas trees and the celebration of Christmas around the world it is almost certain that there are just as many undocumented traditions. Whether your family makes a trip to a Christmas tree farm and carefully selects one and brings it home to decorate or chooses to decorate an artificial one which you have carefully stored from the previous year is not as important as what is on your hearts and minds as you celebrate the birth of the Christ child this year.

Making and taking the time to decorate the tree as a family creates special family memories and traditions that can be shared with your family for years to come. If you ask each family member this year to share cherished thoughts of years gone by, you may be pleasantly surprised to find that it is not the expensive gifts but the times shared. This time of year can bring families closer together, if we do not let the commercial side of it become overwhelming.

Christmas Newsletter

How about sending out newsletters this year in place of the traditional cards? This gives you time to reflect on the last year and the growth of your family. For tips on how to make your own family newsletter to share with friends and family this season read: http://www.ehow.com/how_4575235_capture-family-memories-share-them.html.

There are free templates to help you get your own newsletter set up, and think how nice it will be years from now to look back at yours.

Merry Christmas and God bless.

Internationally, the best-known fairy-tale writers are Zacharias Topelius and Tove Jansson, both of whom wrote in Swedish. Finnish-speaking writers, such as Anni Swan, initially drew their influences from German and Nordic Romanticism and Finnish folktales, especially from the anthology edited by Eero Salmelainen, Suomen kansan satuja ja tarinoita (The Marchen and Legends of the Finnish People, 1852-66). After World War II, inspired by British classics of children's literature (for example, Lewis Carroll, Sir James Matthew Barrie, and A. A. Milne), Finnish writers also modernized their contributions to fairy-tale literature.

It's always been an unquestioned necessity for me to have buses, metro's, trams and trains running regularly and transporting me to wherever I'm wishing to go. That may be why I didn't pay accessibility and transportation a second thought when I found out I was going to go to exchange in a little town in Western Pennsylvania called Indiana. Anyway, it was only 500 kilometres away from New York and the delights of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia were even closer. And Chicago and Niagara Falls for sure were easy to reach by bus. The four months would be so filled with traveling that I didn't even know where to start.

However, after arriving to the small snow-covered town, the reality started finally to take in. This place was designed to people who left the comfort of their houses only with their big cars and even though Indiana is considered to be a student town, it was screaming for the lack of transportation which a European student finds as an absolute necessity. The connections from campus to the malls did exist, employing men and women clearly in retirement age, and transporting even older people and the few students who didn't have the luxury of owning a car. But what it comes to leaving the town, it had been made extremely difficult for non-car owners. The bus to Pittsburgh (and to the closest airport), run twice a day, but there was no point of going for day trip because three hour's city pleasure isn't worth of six hour's sweaty and bumpy bus trip. And having experienced the old, sometimes too hot and sometimes too cold busses, the 18 hour's trip to New York by road didn't seem that tempting any more. Neither did any other options. And there we were with my fellow exchange students, lying on our dormitory beds on evenings, listening to the whistles of the carriage train and imagining how easy it would be if it just would take people.

By writing this I'm not meaning to complain over things that can't be done better by moaning. I'm simply wishing to share my astonishment with others, and maybe even offer a warning to people who are considering exploring America beyond the big cities. It introduces a European student a completely different mentality which is difficult to understand if not experienced in person. The concepts individualism and freedom which are cherished in the American culture show their distorted edges in this travelling issue. The well-off can access everything they need easily from the comfort of their huge cars but the other side of the society is left in the mercy of miserable public transport and the strength of their own will. Because you really need a patience of a saint and a good amount of strong will to sit down in a bus for 18 hours to access a city only 500 km away.

But eventually getting around in Western Pennsylvania wasn't as difficult as it first seemed. You just had to adapt to completely new conditions, take your time to get into the closest airport and fly! Thanks to the countless budget flight companies and the excellent exchange rate between dollar and euro, I and my fellow exchange students managed to see plenty of interest places after all during our one semester stay.

Experiencing rule under several differing governments, including the kingdom of Sweden, the Russian Empire, the Kalmar Union, and brief existence as a Duchy prior to becoming independent of the Russians under the Brest-Litovsk treaty of 1918, an independent Finland is a relatively new concept. Its statehood was internationally recognized in January of 1919. More than half of the nation is under the denomination of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. Smaller pockets of Finnish and Eastern Orthodox Christian followers exist, along with Roman Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim populations. Finland also maintains in own baseball league, its rules varying slightly from that of the North American style. However, traditional foods are served, rather than that of their Yankee counterparts, beer still a common beverage at all athletic observances. From 1947 until the fall of the Soviet Union, Finland was practically forced by the Soviet Union to sign an agreement that barred it from joining NATO, essentially safeguarding Finland from invasion and occupation by Warsaw Pact forces, and also allowing cooperation and friendly mutual assistance with Finn-Soviet relations. Thus, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Finland filed for European Union membership.

Considered a model cooperative state with quick accession to the European Union, Finland always kept a strong feeling of friendliness toward all fellow Nordic nations. Seeking to further protect their regional identity, it was always common to see cooperation among the Nordic states, especially the peninsular trio of Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Relations of Russia are almost solely bureaucratic, however friendly. Disputes over border territories are known, but passive and not actively pursued by the Finnish government. Shared with most Nordic nations, Finland taxes its citizens greatly. Nearly two million members of the workforce support a sixty-five percent tax on the population, however most make at least a modest twenty-five Euros per hour, well above the salaries of many nations bordering them. Housing and medical fees are largely paid for, the healthcare provision of Finnish citizens remarkable compared to many nations, though uniform with other Nordic nations, especially Sweden.

Finnish medical experts claim that at most fifty percent of the male population is obese, with a strong thirty-eight percent in female obesity. However, this is one of more exaggerated studies, even though type I diabetes in Finland is one of the highest recurring diseases recorded in the world, along with suicide by males within this group. Though this is all detrimental to an already dwindling society, Finland's population is very conscious of health standards, less than fifteen percent of its population smoking. There is one doctor for ever three hundred citizens, eighteen percent of health insurance paid by households. The remainder is provided by the government. Finland currently maintains one of the most highly ranked education systems in the world, its universities and other tertiary institutions ranked first in the world according to the World Economic Forum, including state and private universities and trade schools.

Finnish research includes improvement of the forests, environmental repair, synthesis and introduction of new and alternative materials, brain and genetic study, and communications. Considered one of the oldest nations in the nation with most voters over the age of fifty and a median age of forty-one, only ten births are recorded per one thousand citizens in the country. Dually by far the most sparsely populated country in the European Union and Europe, save Russia, an estimated sixteen square kilometers for each person exists. However, this is primarily because at least a fifth of the nation is within the Arctic Circle, making in nearly inhabitable without proper precautions. An indigenous people to this area, known as the Sami (Lappish) and numbering in less than a few million, they congregate in this area as nomadic herders of reindeer, adopting many traditions that mirror that of the Uralic beginnings - if not keeping the majority. Within the past decade, Finland, Norway, and Sweden were able to recognize the Sami people as a legitimate indigenous people. Their herding of reindeer and other animals is, as protected by Finn law, completely legalized and recognized by the state. Also, efforts to make their previously unwritten language more mainstream, Finnish and Swedish researchers have made efforts at producing both the Bible and other works in Sami language. A dying culture, some dialects of Lappish have less than twenty speakers in the world, the language completely unwritten and solely verbal. Joining the European Union in 1995, Finland was one of the first members of a coalition that sought to unify the European continent.

Unlike the results proven by other nations both eastern and central, the economic success of Finland seemed to persist, unlike several nations which rely on each other to create and encourage trade. Known exclusively as the creator of the massively successful Nokia telecommunications and cellular telephone Corporation, Finland's economy has bolstered unimaginably, Nokia phones in use by people of every class and region. As handheld communication is an industry in only its earliest stages, Finland was able to bring the market into the international spectrum with cheap and easily used cellular phones, also providing the most advanced models consistently. Not only did this provide a good market for Finland, but also a gateway for the rest of the world for new enterprise. Nokia, often mistaken as a Japanese Firm, is also a word almost as well known as the corporate contenders of America, including Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and McDonalds.

Humble beginnings as a fishing and logging corporation would bring Nokia into the international spotlight as a headlining manufacturer for cellular phones and was adopted by almost every service provider, including AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile. Increasingly popular among the working class is the pay-as-you-go phone, for which older Nokia models are used because of simplicity as a mainstay. Finnish passion in telecommunications is also expressed via their unique status of being the only nation to own nearly as many internet protocol addresses as the United States, making internet access much less of an ordeal when in comparison to other nations. As such, Finland also maintains the second largest amount of constant internet users per capita next to the United States. Because of alleged internet addiction, several corporations and even the Finnish Defense Forces have removed personnel for their stated addiction and inability to perform because of a lack of internet or computer usage.

Each person has had his own way to seek happiness during the separation of the world between the West and the East there were those who were for the United States of America as a super power or the Russia former Soviet Union as a Super power after the Red revolution of 1917. The signature in 1977 in Helsinki of the Human Rights Declaration, it became clear that each person has to have his own opinion.

Helsinki is in Finland and can be very fascinating because of the lakes. Finland has more lakes than any other place in the world. One of the most important water resources of Russia is the Volga and lake Baikal and this brings another lake to consider which is Lake Tanganyika which is found in Burundi, Democratic Republic of Zaire and Tanzania. So, probably the reality is the struggle on how human beings are going to access Lake Tanganyika freely with regards to Mountain Kilimanjaro where snow never melts.

One has to remember that snow can be used as a leisure for sports and tourism can develop because the atmosphere is health. The United States of America is the champion of democracy with an important community of immigrants to escaped persecution and most of them were nobles. Now, that the Tsar of Nicholas Romanov of all Russia has been recognised there will certainly I hope an agreement to organise free and peaceful journeys to Tanganyika and all its marvelous treasures like Mount Kilimandjaro.

Denmark’s colors contain red and white, and is known to be the oldest continually used national flag. According to legend, it is believed that on June 15, 1219 that the flag fell from the sky on the same day of the defeat of a battle against the Estonians.

The blue and white Finnish flag dates back to 1918. It has a blue cross with a coat of arms in the middle of the cross. The two colors were named because of water and snow.

The Icelandic flag has been official since 1915, and was approved by the king in 1919. The flag’s colors were originally blue and white, but red was later added to show its connections to Norway.

Norway made a red flag with a white cross, which resemble Denmark’s flag during their unification in the fourteenth century. In 1814, Norway ceded with Sweden. Then a few years before Norway’s independence, the color blue was added to the flag.

The exact age of Sweden’s flag is not known, but it is believed to date back to the sixteenth century, but it wasn’t until 1960 that there was evidence that the flag belonged to Sweden. The Swedish flag is blue with a gold cross.