A Look Around the World — Winter Celebrations

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There are many different ways to celebrate winter holidays.

Cultural differences should not separate us from each other,
but rather cultural diversity brings a collective strength
that can benefit all of humanity.


—Robert Alan


The winter holiday season is a special time of year, especially for children. How we celebrate this year may look different, but the spirit will be the same! As early childhood education professionals, we strive to make this time of year special for the children in our lives and welcome the opportunity to celebrate diversity and promote inclusion.


Regardless of how you say it – celebrate, celebrar, fira, célébrer – a celebration is commonly defined as “an act or event” that “commemorates something” or “makes something special.” Most people take time during the winter months to celebrate the end of the year and the beginning of a new. While there are many differences in the events we celebrate and how we commemorate them, they all have similar aspects of togetherness, reflection, and enjoyment.


With the winter months upon us, we look around the world to explore 10 different winter celebrations. Learning about the celebrations of other cultures can bring us closer together and make us stronger. It is also easier than ever before to explore these curiosities with today’s technology!


There are countless winter celebrations and we have highlighted the following 10. We also created an infographic resource for you to download that shares highlights of these celebrations. Now more than ever, it is important to take time to celebrate. Enjoy!


  1. Boxing Day
  2. Chinese New Year
  3. Christmas
  4. Diwali
  5. Hanukkah
  6. Kwanzaa
  7. Las Posadas
  8. St. Lucia Day
  9. Three Kings Day
  10. Winter Solstice


Boxing Day


Typically celebrated on December 26th, Boxing Day became an official holiday in 1871 and is celebrated in the United Kingdom and former British colonies. There are several theories as to why it was named Boxing Day, but the most common is that servants frequently had to work on Christmas day. Therefore, the next day, their employers would give the servants the day off. In addition, employers often “boxed up” gifts and sometimes included leftover food from their holiday meals for the servants to take home and share with their own families. Another popular origin story is that Boxing Day arose from the tradition of people making charitable donations during the Christmas season. People either created charitable boxes to share with the less fortunate or put money into boxes at church for the same purpose. Today, Boxing Day has turned into a time to shop post-holiday sales and watch copious amounts of sports including loads of football (what US folks call soccer) and even the occasional boxing match.


Chinese New Year


Chinese New Year, also known as the Lunar New Year, is celebrated in accordance with the traditional Chinese calendar, with each new year marked by a different Chinese zodiac animal. This coming year, celebrated on February 12th, 2021, will be the Year of the Ox. Families come together to celebrate, honor one’s ancestors, set off fireworks, and eat traditional Chinese dishes such as dumplings and noodles. It is also traditional for parents to give their children red envelopes that contain small amounts of money. In general, the holiday is celebrated to commemorate a new year of good fortune and happiness. In other countries, Chinese New Year is also associated with festivals such as the Spring Festival and Lantern Festival.


Christmas


Christmas is traditionally a Christian celebration commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, but in the early 20th century, it also became a secular family holiday, observed by Christians and non-Christians alike. For many, Christmas is a time of spiritual reflection. Specifically, Christians often celebrate God’s love for the world through the birth of the Jesus Christ.


People all over the world celebrate Christmas with both religious and secular traditions and customs. These customs include decorating evergreen trees – or, in India, mango or bamboo trees; sharing meals with family and friends (picnics are prevalent in warm climates); waiting for Santa Claus; and exchanging gifts on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. The foods eaten during Christmas are just as varied as the ways in which people celebrate, but two common items are candy canes and Christmas cookies.


Diwali


Diwali is a five-day festival of lights celebrated by millions of Hindus, Sikhs, and Jains across the world. Diwali or Deepavali(Sanskrit), meaning “a series of lights,” is a religious holiday that spans three interrelated but distinct religions: Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism. This religious festival celebrates new beginnings and the triumph of good over evil, and light over darkness.


Each religion marks different historical events and stories with a variety of traditions and customs, including many lights and oil lamps that are lit on the streets and in houses. People visit their relatives and have feasts, and fireworks and festivities are an essential part of the occasion. There are many different things that might be eaten during Diwali, but it is most known for the sweets.


Hanukkah


Hanukkah is the eight-day Jewish festival of lights that commemorates the reclaiming and rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Against all odds, a small group reclaimed the Holy Temple and rededicated it to the services of G-d. When they sought to light the Temple’s Menorah, they found only a single batch of oil that had escaped contamination. Miraculously, they lit the menorah and the one-day supply of oil lasted for eight days. To commemorate these miracles, this wintertime “festival of lights” is celebrated with a nightly menorah lighting, special prayers, and fried foods.


Kwanzaa


Kwanzaa is a seven-day African-American festival, introduced by Dr. Maulana Karenga in 1966, that celebrates community, family, and culture from December 26th to January 1st. There are seven principles and seven primary symbols that emphasize a unique set of values and ideals during the seven days of Kwanzaa.


  1. Unity (Umoja)
  2. Self-determination (Kujichagulia)
  3. Collective work and responsibility (Ujima)
  4. Cooperative economics (Ujamaa)
  5. Purpose (Nia)
  6. Creativity (Kuumba)
  7. Faith (Imani)


During Kwanzaa, a special candle holder called a kinara is used. A kinara holds seven candles, three red ones on the left, three green ones on the right, and a black one in the center. A candle is lit each night during Kwanzaa.


Las Posadas


The celebration of Las Posadas is an important Christmas tradition in Mexico. These celebrations take place from December 16thto December 24th. The word posada means “shelter.” The nine nights of posadas represent the nine days it took Mary and Joseph to get from Nazareth (where they lived) to Bethlehem (where Jesus was born). The Bible Story of Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem and their search for a place to stay is reenacted during the celebration. Each night begins with a procession of people holding candles and singing Christmas carols. The procession will make its way to someone’s home (a different home every night). Once outside the home, half of the people sing the role of Joseph asking for shelter and the other half sings the part of the innkeeper saying there is no room. The parts are sung a few times until the innkeeper agrees to let them in. Once inside, the celebration continues with a religious service and ends with food provided by the host. Tamales and atole (traditional Mexican beverage) are customarily served. The celebration usually ends with breaking piñatas.


St. Lucia Day


St. Lucia Day, also called St. Lucy Day, is a festival of lights most widely celebrated in Scandinavia and Italy. St. Lucia is a Christian feast day that commemorates Lucia of Syracuse, an early-4th-century virgin martyr. According to legend, St. Lucy brought food and aid to Christians hiding in the Roman catacombs, wearing a candlelit wreath on her head to light her way and leave her hands free to carry as much food as possible.


Today, throughout Europe, families observe St. Lucia Day in their homes with a variety of customs and traditions. Many celebrate with a processional of children dressed in white, carrying candles. Girls usually wear a white dress with a red sash around the waist and a crown of candles. It is traditional to serve a St. Lucia Crown Cake, usually a round coffee cake with seven candles placed in a circle. Adults traditionally drink glögg, a type of mulled wine, and serve coffee or lingonberry juice. A popular food eaten on St. Lucia day is lussekatts, buns flavored with saffron and raisins that are eaten for breakfast.


Three Kings Day


Three Kings Day is a celebration of the biblical tale in which the Three Kings (Melchior, Caspar, and Balthasar) visit baby Jesus after his birth. It is celebrated on January 6th which is 12 days after Christmas day. According to the Gospel of Matthew, the three kings traveled to Bethlehem to bring the baby Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.


Today, people from countries all over the world celebrate this day. In Mexico, children are told to leave their shoes by the door of their house so the three kings can visit and leave them presents. Many bakeries make rosca de reyes which is a sweet bread meant to represent a king’s crown. The bread usually has several baby figures inside. Anyone who gets a piece of rosca with the baby figurine is expected to host a party on Día de la Calendaria which is February 2nd.


Winter Solstice


The Winter solstice marks the official start to winter. It is the astronomical moment when the Sun reaches the Tropic of Capricorn, and in the Northern Hemisphere, we have our shortest day and longest night (based on hours of sunlight). This year the winter solstice is on December 21st, 2020 at 4:02 a.m. Central Time. The Winter solstice has played an important role in cultures worldwide since ancient times. The Pagan celebration of Winter Solstice (also known as Yule) is one of the oldest winter celebrations in the world.


The winter solstice is traditionally celebrated as a symbol of the changing seasons and of the Earth’s rebirth and is believed to hold a powerful energy for regeneration, renewal, and self-reflection. Traditional winter solstice foods often have an emphasis on the Earth itself – incorporating nuts, berries, spices, squash, potatoes, and hunted game like goose and venison.


Celebrate Winter


During this time of year, we can reflect on our personal celebrations and how others around our communities, our country, and around the world celebrate. Talk with your staff about the 10 celebrations listed here to find out how much they know about these winter celebrations.

Reflect on These Questions


  • What holidays do you currently celebrate in your program, if any?
  • In what ways can you respectfully celebrate the diversity of the children, families, and employees of your early childhood program?
  • How can children and families share their experiences of celebration with your program?


Share our similarities, celebrate our differences.


—M. Scott Peck

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Measuring Organizational Conditions for Improving Quality

By McCormick Center • May 13, 2025
Leaders, policymakers, and systems developers seek to improve early childhood programs through data-driven decision-making. Data can be useful for informing continuous quality improvement efforts at the classroom and program level and for creating support for workforce development at the system level. Early childhood program leaders use assessments to help them understand their programs’ strengths and to draw attention to where supports are needed.  Assessment data is particularly useful in understanding the complexity of organizational climate and the organizational conditions that lead to successful outcomes for children and families. Several tools are available for program leaders to assess organizational structures, processes, and workplace conditions, including: Preschool Program Quality Assessment (PQA) 1 Program Administration Scale (PAS) 2 Child Care Worker Job Stress Inventory (ECWJSI) 3 Early Childhood Job Satisfaction Survey (ECJSS) 4 Early Childhood Work Environment Survey (ECWES) 5 Supportive Environmental Quality Underlying Adult Learning (SEQUAL) 6 The Early Education Essentials is a recently developed tool to examine program conditions that affect early childhood education instructional and emotional quality. It is patterned after the Five Essentials Framework, 7 which is widely used to measure instructional supports in K-12 schools. The Early Education Essentials measures six dimensions of quality in early childhood programs: Effective instructional leaders Collaborative teachers Supportive environment Ambitious instruction Involved families Parent voice A recently published validation study for the Early Education Essentials 8 demonstrates that it is a valid and reliable instrument that can be used to assess early childhood programs to improve teaching and learning outcomes. METHODOLOGY For this validation study, two sets of surveys were administered in one Midwestern city; one for teachers/staff in early childhood settings and one for parents/guardians of preschool-aged children. A stratified random sampling method was used to select sites with an oversampling for the percentage of children who spoke Spanish. The teacher surveys included 164 items within 26 scales and were made available online for a three-month period in the public schools. In community-based sites, data collectors administered the surveys to staff. Data collectors also administered the parent surveys in all sites. The parent survey was shorter, with 54 items within nine scales. Rasch analyses was used to combine items into scales. In addition to the surveys, administrative data were analyzed regarding school attendance. Classroom observational assessments were performed to measure teacher-child interactions. The Classroom Assessment Scoring System TM (CLASS) 9 was used to assess the interactions. Early Education Essentials surveys were analyzed from 81 early childhood program sites (41 school-based programs and 40 community-based programs), serving 3- and 4-year old children. Only publicly funded programs (e.g., state-funded preschool and/or Head Start) were included in the study. The average enrollment for the programs was 109 (sd = 64); 91% of the children were from minority backgrounds; and 38% came from non-English speaking homes. Of the 746 teacher surveys collected, 451 (61%) were from school-based sites and 294 (39%) were from community-based sites. There were 2,464 parent surveys collected (59% school; 41% community). About one-third of the parent surveys were conducted in Spanish. Data were analyzed to determine reliability, internal validity, group differences, and sensitivity across sites. Child outcome results were used to examine if positive scores on the surveys were related to desirable outcomes for children (attendance and teacher-child interactions). Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to compute average site-level CLASS scores to account for the shared variance among classrooms within the same school. Exploratory factor analysis was performed to group the scales. RESULTS The surveys performed well in the measurement characteristics of scale reliability, internal validity, differential item functioning, and sensitivity across sites . Reliability was measured for 25 scales with Rasch Person Reliability scores ranging from .73 to .92; with only two scales falling below the preferred .80 threshold. The Rasch analysis also provided assessment of internal validity showing that 97% of the items fell in an acceptable range of >0.7 to <1.3 (infit mean squares). The Teacher/Staff survey could detect differences across sites, however the Parent Survey was less effective in detecting differences across sites. Differential item functioning (DIF) was used to compare if individual responses differed for school- versus community-based settings and primary language (English versus Spanish speakers). Results showed that 18 scales had no or only one large DIF on the Teacher/Staff Survey related to setting. There were no large DIFs found related to setting on the Parent Survey and only one scale that had more than one large DIF related to primary language. The authors decided to leave the large DIF items in the scale because the number of large DIFs were minimal and they fit well with the various groups. The factor analysis aligned closely with the five essentials in the K-12 model . However, researchers also identified a sixth factor—parent voice—which factored differently from involved families on the Parent Survey. Therefore, the Early Education Essentials have an additional dimension in contrast to the K-12 Five Essentials Framework. Outcomes related to CLASS scores were found for two of the six essential supports . Positive associations were found for Effective Instructional Leaders and Collaborative Teachers and all three of the CLASS domains (Emotional Support, Classroom Organization, and Instructional Support). Significant associations with CLASS scores were not found for the Supportive Environment, Involved Families, or Parent Voice essentials. Ambitious Instruction was not associated with any of the three domains of the CLASS scores. Table 1. HLM Coefficients Relating Essential Scores to CLASS Scores (Model 1) shows the results of the analysis showing these associations. Outcomes related to student attendance were found for four of the six essential supports . Effective Instructional Leaders, Collaborative Teachers, Supportive Environment, and Involved Families were positively associated with student attendance. Ambitious Instruction and Parent Voice were not found to be associated with student attendance. The authors are continuing to examine and improve the tool to better measure developmentally appropriate instruction and to adapt the Parent Survey so that it will perform across sites. There are a few limitations to this study that should be considered. Since the research is based on correlations, the direction of the relationship between factors and organizational conditions is not evident. It is unknown whether the Early Education Essentials survey is detecting factors that affect outcomes (e.g., engaged families or positive teacher-child interactions) or whether the organizational conditions predict these outcomes. This study was limited to one large city and a specific set of early childhood education settings. It has not been tested with early childhood centers that do not receive Head Start or state pre-K funding. DISCUSSION The Early Education Essentials survey expands the capacity of early childhood program leaders, policymakers, systems developers, and researchers to assess organizational conditions that specifically affect instructional quality. It is likely to be a useful tool for administrators seeking to evaluate the effects of their pedagogical leadership—one of the three domains of whole leadership. 10 When used with additional measures to assess whole leadership—administrative leadership, leadership essentials, as well as pedagogical leadership—stakeholders will be able to understand the organizational conditions and supports that positively impact child and family outcomes. Many quality initiatives focus on assessment at the classroom level, but examining quality with a wider lens at the site level expands the opportunity for sustainable change and improvement. The availability of valid and reliable instruments to assess the organizational structures, processes, and conditions within early childhood programs is necessary for data-driven improvement of programs as well as systems development and applied research. Findings from this validation study confirm that strong instructional leadership and teacher collaboration are good predictors of effective teaching and learning practices, evidenced in supportive teacher-child interactions and student attendance. 11 This evidence is an important contribution to the growing body of knowledge to inform embedded continuous quality improvement efforts. It also suggests that leadership to support teacher collaboration like professional learning communities (PLCs) and communities of practice (CoPs) may have an effect on outcomes for children. This study raises questions for future research. The addition of the “parent voice” essential support should be further explored. If parent voice is an essential support why was it not related to CLASS scores or student attendance? With the introduction of the Early Education Essentials survey to the existing battery of program assessment tools (PQA, PAS, ECWJSI, ECWES, ECJSS and SEQUAL), a concurrent validity study is needed to determine how these tools are related and how they can best be used to examine early childhood leadership from a whole leadership perspective. ENDNOTES 1 High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, 2003 2 Talan & Bloom, 2011 3 Curbow, Spratt, Ungaretti, McDonnell, & Breckler, 2000 4 Bloom, 2016 5 Bloom, 2016 6 Whitebook & Ryan, 2012 7 Bryk, Sebring, Allensworth, Luppescu, & Easton, 2010 8 Ehrlich, Pacchiano, Stein, Wagner, Park, Frank, et al., 2018 9 Pianta, La Paro, & Hamre, 2008 10 Abel, Talan, & Masterson, 2017 11 Bloom, 2016; Lower & Cassidy, 2007 REFERENCES Abel, M. B., Talan, T. N., & Masterson, M. (2017, Jan/Feb). Whole leadership: A framework for early childhood programs. Exchange(19460406), 39(233), 22-25. Bloom, P. J. (2016). Measuring work attitudes in early childhood settings: Technical manual for the Early Childhood Job Satisfaction Survey (ECJSS) and the Early Childhood Work Environment Survey (ECWES), (3rd ed.). Lake Forest, IL: New Horizons. Bryk, A. S., Sebring, P. B., Allensworth, E., Luppescu, S., & Easton, J. Q. (2010). Organizing schools for improvement: Lessons from Chicago. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Curbow, B., Spratt, K., Ungaretti, A., McDonnell, K., & Breckler, S. (2000). Development of the Child Care Worker Job Stress Inventory. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 15, 515-536. DOI: 10.1016/S0885-2006(01)00068-0 Ehrlich, S. B., Pacchiano, D., Stein, A. G., Wagner, M. R., Park, S., Frank, E., et al., (in press). Early Education Essentials: Validation of a new survey tool of early education organizational conditions. Early Education and Development. High/Scope Educational Research Foundation (2003). Preschool Program Quality Assessment, 2nd Edition (PQA) administration manual. Ypsilanti, MI: High/Scope Press. Lower, J. K. & Cassidy, D. J. (2007). Child care work environments: The relationship with learning environments. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 22(2), 189-204. DOI: 10.1080/02568540709594621 Pianta, R. C., La Paro, K. M., & Hamre, B. K. (2008). Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co. Talan, T. N., & Bloom, P. J. (2011). Program Administration Scale: Measuring early childhood leadership and management (2 nd ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Whitebook, M., & Ryan, S. (2012). Supportive Environmental Quality Underlying Adult Learning (SEQUAL). Berkeley, CA: Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, University of California.
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