Away for a holiday

In Paris, 'tis the season when people promenade down world-famous boulevards wearing various articles of plaid clothing.

Growing up in Seattle, I had thought the preoccupation with plaids and flannels was strictly a tenet of Pacific Northwest lifestyle. Studying abroad in France made me realize there is such a thing as an international fashion epidemic.

But it has showed me there is an international holiday spirit, too.

International locales provide variations on the theme of holidays as we know them. For example, my Thanksgiving was spent in a French restaurant where turkey was not even on the menu. I ate salad instead of stuffing, cheese instead of cranberry sauce and a garnish rather than gravy. Pumpkin pie was simply out of the question. I called my family at 2 a.m. Paris time, just as they would be sitting down to dinner in Seattle. Then I went to sleep.

One thing I didn't consider when I signed up to study abroad was the fuzzy feeling of familiarity that stems from being home during the holidays. So when a neighbor burst in and announced that Galleries Lafayette, the biggest department store in Paris, had been decorated for Christmas, I decided to cure my holiday homesickness with a little retail therapy. What I discovered was, spiritual or ritual differences aside, signs that international holiday spirit can be found almost everywhere, no matter how far from home one may be.

The first sign of international holiday spirit are the decorations. When I stepped out of the metro station and looked around, I gasped. On a storefront that had been all but bare the week before, Galleries Lafayette had been transformed into a Christmas wonderland. A gigantic snowflake display, glittering with lights, had been attached to the building's seven-story facade. The area around it was sparkling with lights and garland, not to mention hundreds of tourists holding up traffic by standing in the street taking photos of the building.

The noise of car horns, yelling and footsteps on pavement reminded me of New York. For the first time since arriving in Paris two months ago, I felt like I was experiencing culture shock. Not because everything was different, but because everything seemed exactly the same. It was cultural deja vu, and it was unnerving.

"Last night I decorated a Christmas tree with my host family," reported junior Katie Shaw, a Daily reporter, in an e-mail from Oaxaca, Mexico, where she has been studying this fall. "Our house is completely decked out in Christmas decorations, to more of an extreme than I've seen in most houses in the U.S."

Another sign of holiday spirit that is noticeable is eating. "The best part (of the holiday season) for us as students is the food," wrote Raven Avery, a junior studying in Berlin, also a Daily staff member, in an e-mail. "And since there's no pesky open container law in Germany, we can stop in the middle of a class outing for some hot spiced wine."

As Christmas draws nearer, many European grocery stores devote more and more space to wine and chocolates in specially decorated packages -- the better to make merry with. In many cultures, special holiday meals are prepared, with everything from salted dry cod fish in Portugal to seafood in Australia, where Christmas is an excuse to party on the beach.

Shopping also shows up as a sign of the international holiday spirit. For the most part, men and women around the world detest and love shopping, respectively, especially during the holiday season. However, gift giving is an enduring tradition in nearly every culture, whether one celebrates Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or something else. Tough luck, guys.

Finally, I notice the spectacle. In Paris, it's about mini-orchestras in metro stations playing holiday classics.

In Berlin, Avery experienced Germany's "giant outdoor markets of food and gift items," she said. "Some feature carnival rides and live music."

In Mexico, Shaw will witness the culmination of Las Posadas from Dec. 16 to 24. Las Posadas celebrates the journey of Mary and Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem and the posada, or inn, where Jesus was born. Each night of the holiday, a child dressed as an angel leads a procession to a house, where a group recreates the scene of Mary and Joseph as they begged for shelter at an inn.

Wherever we happen to be during the holidays, it is important to remember that, differences aside, we have the capacity to be united during the season that is famous for its miracles. The international holiday spirit can be found in every corner of the world, no matter what the difference in culture and religion.

It gives me food for thought as I walk down these boulevards and shake my head at the woman dressed in red plaid pants after she passes by. I may not understand her fashion statement, but I get her message loud and clear.