Gift Giving in Slovenia - Christmas around the Globe.
Hi! We continue our Christmas Around the Globe series with another guest post by the lovely Isabel from The Sunny Side of This. As of this post I will no longer be available to comment, As I must focus on packing and getting the house ready for vacation mode.
A while back I talked about how similar Slovenia and Mexico are, and today it’s time to talk about one of my biggest cultural shocks I've encountered while living abroad, and it's in regards to...
From the sunny side of this,
Isabel
Honeymoon, frustration, adjustment, and mastery are the four phases you go through while living in a foreign country, I can go through all of them in one same day. .My main rule is to build a large amount of empathy and understanding to help me just keep going.
Gift giving in Slovenia
In Slovenia you will get gifts for New Years, Easter, and St. Nicholas day (celebrated December 6th and it is usually for kids--it is like the Western equivalent of Christmas Day). What I find fascinating is that adults also get a gift on St. Nicholas day.
People will usually give you chocolates, wine, shower soap, coffee and sometimes fruits. This is mainly because during communist times people would rather give you something that you were already going to buy so you wouldn't have to spend money on them. At the beginning, I found it really strange. But later I realized that this is something really thoughtful in its own way.
But here came the Mexican girl who received coffee, shower soap and deodorant while she was giving clothes and jewelry.She didn't have a clue what was going on until her husband explained it to her after.
Receiving gifts in Mexico
This is because in Mexico, if you are giving a gift to someone you care about you usually give them something they might like -something nice and thoughtful-like a perfume, a pair of earrings,a bracelet, a book, a purse, a watch, a shirt, underwear, a nice bottle of Scotch or wine.
Of course, it also depends on how well you know the person and the occasion.
For example, for Christmas you could get red or yellow underwear to wish you good luck for the New Year. Red is to attract love and yellow is for money (you have to wear them on new year's eve, lol).
Birthday gifts
in Mexico, different friends will give you different things as birthday gifts. In Slovenia, your whole group of friends will pitch in to buy you something bigger like a day trip or a nice memento.
I love the fact that living abroad gives you the opportunity to see your own culture with such different eyes. I'm a huge believer that everyone at some point should live abroad. It makes us realize all the opportunities we have to grow, increase our empathy and helps with our creative problem solving.
Have you experienced any cultural shocks living abroad?
Isabel
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