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Tradition of Christmas Celebration in Indonesia
The celebration of Christmas is known as the birthday of Jesus Christ in various parts of the world. Those who celebrate this Christmas also welcomed the special day with different traditions. Not only in the world, the country also has a variety of traditions in the welcome of Christmas. Here are some Christmas traditions in some provinces:
1. Wayang Kulit, Yogyakarta
In Yogyakarta, the pastor usually leads worship by wearing a large shirt and blangkon, wearing fine Javanese, complete with a shadow puppet show themed "The Birth of Christ". There is also a tradition of visiting each other on December 25, such as Lebaran. Not infrequently the children also got angpau at the time of friendship.
2. Marbinda, North Sumatra
The Batak community in North Sumatra recognize a tradition named 'Marbinda'. That is, the tradition of slaughtering an animal together in the feast. The slaughtered animals were the result of a mutual savings deal between several people from the previous few months. If the number of participants of the joint is many, the animals slaughtered can be buffalo. However, if a few are usually only pigs. On the Day-H, they do the 'marhobas' (mutilation and sharing) of the animal.
3. Key Taon, Manado
The Christmas celebration in Manado is held from December 1 with a pre-Christmas service held every day until Christmas. The most searched vegetables before Christmas here are the beans. Many families also have a tradition of visiting their relatives' graves and eating together there, usually ahead of the new year. At that moment, the graves are all cleaned and sometimes added decorative lights. The series of Christmas festivities ends on the first Sunday of January with a key tradition of taon, in which villagers march around the village with funny costumes.
4. Bamboo cannon, Ambon - Flores
In Flores, Christmas is identical to a bamboo cannon blown almost every corner of the city on Christmas Eve. Young people usually stay up all night on December 24 while occasionally playing fireworks. In Ambon, Christmas is colored by a siren sound of ships and church bells ringing in unison at midnight on December 24th. This moment is also synonymous with large family gatherings. Another unique tradition is in Papua. Papuans have a tradition of barapen or stone festivals, a local culinary ritual to treat pigs as an expression of Christmas happiness. In addition, in many places there is a Jesus themed birthday decoration complete with Christmas songs played 24 hours.
5. Penjor Church, Bali
Christians in Bali used to celebrate Christmas with their typical outfits, such as kebaya, shawl, and kamen cloth. Commonly used colors are black and white. At the Christmas celebration, the church complex is decorated with bamboo sticks adorned with janur, a Balinese ornament called Penjor.
6. Lovely December, Toraja
Every time before Christmas celebration, Pemda Toraja held a cultural and tourism festival titled Lovely December. The festival begins in December and peaks on December 26 with a procession called lettoan. Lovely Mom December is often used by the nomads to go home and enjoy the carnival, art performances, traditional events, crafts and culinary fairs and even buffalo contest.
7. Bakar Batu, Papua
In Papua, after celebrating Christmas Eucharist or Christmas Eucharist, the residents will do the tradition of barapen or burn stones, which is a ritual of cooking vegetables and pork to be eaten together. Called burn stones because they cook by using stones that are burned with wood. In Papua, they do not use matches to light a fire. The fire is ignited by swiping wood continuously to produce heat. The mothers will prepare the leaves, such as petatas, kale, ferns, cassava, spinach, and papaya. While his fathers will make a hole to insert hot stones that burn. Pork and leaves will then be inserted into the hole, then re-closed with a hot stone. This arrangement is made up to three levels. To cook pork until cooked, it takes about half a day.
8. Rabo-rabo, Jakarta
In Jakarta there is Tugu Village. Known as a place of community of Portuguese descendants living. In Kampung Tugu there is a unique tradition in celebrating Christmas, ie after the worship service of the pilgrims to the grave located next to the church. Then they run the tradition of 'Rabo-Rabo', which is playing keroncong music and dancing together while traveling around the village to visit relatives. Every occupant of the house that is visited must attend the keroncong players to the last house. The highlight of the celebration is in the tradition of 'bath-bath'. Residents gathered at the home of their relatives, then they excitedly scribbled each other's faces with white powder as a symbol of clearing up the past mistakes before the new year.
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