you sorry that's that's me stuff but you do deserve this so thank you URL_TOKEN for supporting this channel and my quest to find my dorky life buddy okay so this first one is going to be of major interest to some of you it's the reading of the america letters so obviously nowadays it's a lot easier to travel although in the last two years there have been barriers but back in day when loads of irish people emigrated especially to america for work and for a better life they often couldn't come home for christmas and obviously they didn't have phones let alone video phones so they would send a letter these letters or christmas cards are traditionally saved up for christmas day and read aloud in front of a fire to the whole family it's a really lovely tradition and actually something we do on christmas day in my family is go through the christmas cards and see who sent them and who we sent them back to it's always a bit dodgy when you realize you didn't send them one back the next thing we're going to talk about is the lighting a candle for jesus i know i've talked about this recently in a video but i couldn't figure out what video and i think maybe it was on patreon but i kind of lose track of where i talk about things so if you're not familiar with the story of the nativity jesus and mary were going around looking for a place to stay and everybody kept saying no you can't come in here we're full up for the night and they ended up getting a place where they had the baby in a stable baby jesus and as a result now irish people have decided that we want mary and joseph to know unless they'd be wandering around ireland that they are welcome in our home by putting a candle in the window the candle is traditionally lit by the youngest member of the family and i think it's really sweet we do do it in my household the next one on a similar wavelength is leaving your door unlocked now this one kind of comes with a contemporary caveat if you're in north inner city dublin probably don't leave your door unlocked a lot of people in the countryside still do it though that traditionally it's believed that the souls of your loved ones may be out like mary and joseph looking for a place to stay for the night they're going to want to come to your home for christmas so basically you leave the door open for your dead relatives to know they're welcome that's sweet isn't it although less sweet if they can see everything that's going on the next touching irish tradition is the christmas hampers from small businesses well i suppose when i say touching it's all for more money at the end of the day but i also think it's a sweet thing to do so obviously back in the day again you'd kind of buy from local businesses a lot more than you would from like the likes of amazon and stuff like that so you'd have a personal relationship with people now depending on how much business you had given them that year the bigger your hamper or box would be from them so for example your local grocer might give you a box of biscuits and milk and things like that for christmas day the butcher might give you a bit of extra meat and
START_SPONSOR_TOKEN you sorry that's that's me stuff but you do deserve this so thank you URL_TOKEN for supporting this channel and my quest to find my dorky life buddy okay so this END_SPONSOR_TOKEN