Growing up in West Windsor, Christmas began with a familiar American storyline — think “Polar Express” or “Elf.” After midnight mass my sister and I would leave cookies out for Santa before curling up under the covers, struggling to fall asleep due to sheer excitement. Meanwhile, our parents would play their role, sneaking our gifts underneath an ornament-laden tree, its plastic branches looking a bit sparser with every passing year. We’d wake up, screaming as we opened our gifts, and then head to church for Korean-American festivities.
Raised in a Buddhist household in South Korea in the 1970s, my mother recalled the holiday as a single moment. She woke up extra early, excited to find a box of individually packaged chocolates, candies, and cookies next to her pillow. Essentially, stocking stuffers. There was no tree, no strings of lights, no carols. Meals were no different from any other day of the week.
As a non-Christian, my mother firmly believed that Christmas was only an imaginative way to reward children for good behavior. A day to celebrate Santa Claus. “Christmas cheer was for the kids,” she said. When she immigrated to the U.S. in the early 1990s (when my father went to work for Princeton BioMeditech), she was unaccustomed to how big of a deal the holiday was to both children and adults, to Christians and non-Christians, alike.
This would explain why we never experienced the family ordeal of Christmas tree shopping. We were always the last house on the block to put up our lights — a measly single string of white awkwardly draped around a bush. We never went caroling or threw Christmas parties. Compared to our festive American neighbors, we were a family of Grinches. Nowadays, the artificial tree doesn’t even make its annual appearance until a week before Christmas when my sister and I, traditionally responsible for “decking the halls,” are home from college to finally put it up.
Six years older than my mother, my father recalled a different form of holiday cheer in Korea in the 1970s, a reason to celebrate for those a little too old for Santa’s stocking stuffers. In 1975 the South Korean government decided to lift the midnight-to-4 a.m. curfew, in effect since 1945, for two annual occasions: Christmas Eve and the first three days of the New Year. According to my supposedly party-boy father, Christmas then became one of the best nights to go out. He recalled good friends, little sleep, and many drinks from local bars and karaoke rooms.
Though Christmas was commonly celebrated by Koreans of all ages, regardless of religious affiliation, in the 1970s and ’80s, the festivities and traditions have historically paled in comparison to those in the United States, where 77 percent of Americans identify as Christians, according to a Gallup poll.
Here what began as a day to worship the birth of Jesus has ballooned into a month of red and green decor, holiday-themed parties, and the “spirit of giving.” To an immigrant from a country where 46 percent of the population has no religious affiliation at all, according to the Pew Research Institute, the numerous tree lighting ceremonies and nationally aired Christmas movie marathons in the weeks leading up to a religious holiday could appear a little excessive.
Even today, only 29 percent of Koreans are Christians. When my parents were growing up in the 1970s, the number was even lower, hovering around 18 percent. Meanwhile, more than 70 percent of Korean-Americans claim they are Christians.
Converting to Christianity has become somewhat synonymous with Korean-American identity. Joining a Korean church provides a close-knit community within the larger Korean-American population.
As first generation Catholics, my family can relate. As we grew up all the popular American holidays — Christmas, Easter, and even non-religious ones like Halloween and Thanksgiving — were celebrated in some part with the church community. The Korean Catholic church became equally important in my family’s social life as in our religious one by translating certain American traditions that don’t exist in South Korea.
So while we don’t wake up to the scent of fresh pine on Christmas morning, the pungent smell of jars and jars of fresh kimchi permeates the house — to be consumed later by dozens of fellow Korean Catholics as part of a mid-afternoon feast, following an hour-long mass and a Christmas-themed talent show. Guaranteed, there will be a least one rendition of “Silent Night” and a theatrical production of the “Good Samaritan.” All translated into Korean, of course. Last year the Youth Group performed a flawless version of “Gangnam Style,” a Korean pop song that became a Top-40 hit. They won.
Finally we will be treated to an appearance by our very own Korean Santa, the moment every kid has been waiting for. Each year a different dad grudgingly puts on an itchy white beard and slips into the familiar red suit for photos and gift distribution. Granted, he will never fill out the costume as well as the Quaker Bridge Mall Santa, but to every parishioner’s delight, at least he speaks Korean!
After spending close to five hours at church (we share a church on Brunswick Avenue in Trenton with a Slovakian parish, St. Ann’s), we’ll retreat to a church member’s house for late-night karaoke and a hodge-podge spread of appetizers. There will be a tray of BBQ wings next to the plate of dried Korean squid. Beer and soju, a type of Korean rice liquor, are there for the adults who need a confidence boost before they can sing the last hours of another hybridized Christmas.
The most recent Christmas I spent in South Korea was in 1997. Just three years old, I don’t remember much. As I pack my bags to visit my grandparents in Seoul for the next two weeks, I’m excited to see how things have changed in Korea. Perhaps this year I’ll hear “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” playing at the city’s mega-mall, Lotte Mart, or even the ringing bell of Salvation Army Santa at Seoul Station.
But I’m also prepared. Though eating boxed candy canes on the plane won’t be the same as eating one from West Windsor’s fire truck Santa, I’m packing a dozen of them and downloading the first two “Home Alone” films to keep up the possibly excessive American-inspired Christmas cheer I’ve grown to love — from setting up the plastic tree with my sister, to being mortified as our parents croon translated carols in a church basement.
Hye-Jin Kim, a 2013 graduate of High School South, is a sophomore at Middlebury College. She served as a summer reporter for the WW-P News in 2014.
