Most families have holiday traditions, but do you know how your ancestors might have celebrated the season?

In Mexico, for example, Christmas is celebrated for nine days with Las Posadas. People dress as Mary and Joseph, traveling from house to house to ask if Mary may stay the night. In Spain, children leave their shoes, filled with straw, carrots and barley, on the windowsills for the horses of the Wise Men. In England, instead of mailing a Christmas list to Santa, children throw it into the fireplace and Father Christmas reads the smoke.

Wouldn't it be fun to incorporate some of our ancestor's traditions into your own? If your family came from Denmark, why not leave out rice pudding for the reindeer instead of cookies? Or if you descend from a Moravian family, put a 26-point star in the window.

For more on holiday traditions around the world visit these sites:

• Moravian Christmas Traditions
www.serve.com/shea/germusa/moravian.htm

• Pennsylvania German Christmas Traditions
www.amishnews.com/featurearticles/germanchristmas.htm

• United States Holiday Traditions
www.californiamall.com/holidaytraditions/traditions-america.htm

• Jewish Holiday Traditions
www.hanukkah-traditions.com/html/traditions.html

• Italian Holiday Traditions
www.californiamall.com/holidaytraditions/traditions-italy.htm

• Kwanzaa Celebration
www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org

• Irish Christmas Traditions
members.tripod.com/pg4anna/xmas.htm

• Norwegian Christmas
www.famlehmann.com/jultradis.htm

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