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Christmas traditions in Albania are just being
forged. Like red metal hammered out on the anvil beliefs and values about
the season are being shaped before our eyes.
Santa never really took off as a tradition
here. It’s hard to imagine Rudolph on a house top with clay tiles with no
chimney to push down a big bag of toys. The idea of Santa has never been
firmly implanted here in the minds of children. Probably because he and his
elves were laboring on a farm co-op all during the days of Communism.
The Christmas bags that we pass out annually to
each village child is in danger of again becoming a causality of the
season. Children have come to place an extreme amount of faith in the
sandwich bags that these two elves are handling. We try to keep the gift
separate from the birth in real terms. God’s gift wasn’t given by elves or
reindeers but by the birth of his son. That’s the tradition that we want to
establish in the village.
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