i didnt mean if you got light in it,i guess as long as you have it,you will decorate it lol
İ meant light in the house,outside,and inside
But i guess you do.
Thx Canım

ah, some people decorate their houses with lights. but it isn't common though.

here in melbourne (my city) there are some streets that are well known for having most of the houses decorated in lights with the santa claus and reindeer, or the nativity scene.

some people even go to the extreme and put fake snow on their grass!

but most people just decorate the christmas tree inside with lights.

In America it is very common for people to put lights on their houses. People put whole scenes that often have nothing to do with Christianity but more to do with Saint Nicholas (Turkish), or popular fictional characters such as a snowman, or Rudolph the Red nosed Reindeer.

No one has answered Canli's question about Halloween. Halloween is totally pagan and from my understanding is where people would dress up as 'spirits' to scare away bad spirits that would rise up on that day (October 31st). Some people who are REALLY Christian have a problem with it because it is from Pagan beliefs (I guess). Kids dress up as different characters and go door to door asking for candy, you give them candy. I don't know about this tradition and where it comes from, you will have to ask another American. They say "Trick or Treat" Basically, you have to give them candy or they will do something bad to you (but hopefully they won't). This is my favorite holiday because 1. you get to dress up even as an adult 2. It involves candy.

At a request, I will share a little bit about Poland (though it's not exactly in the West, but as close as it can get .

I think that there are actually many similarities between Poland and Turkey, mainly because they both are combinations of East and West. Both traditions, religion, socially-oriented culture as well as increasingly westernized suburban life style ideals, individualistic, successful, career-oriented women and men who marry late are what makes up today's polish culture. There are both sides of the spectrum: individual rights being more respected, family and career choices are more fair, people easily connect socially, families spend time together and have relatively strong bonds... but also, things like gay and minority rights are 'new ideas' (Poland has been an ethnicly and religiously homogeneous country) and are a basis of discrimination, religious zealousy impinges on divorce and abortion rights, new-found western-style sexism (what I mean by that is judging women purely based on looks, new 'beauty' standards and job discrimination; in communism these ideas are nonexistent, though gender inequality of course exists in other forms).
Generally, the lifestyle is laid back and people are very NON-nationalistic. You can criticize anything you want, though few people criticize the pope John Paul II, he's a national hero much more then Walesa.

Christmas and Easter are the most celebrated holidays, where families always gather together for quite a few days, eat a lot of home made food, connect spiritually (these holidays are much more of spiritual and family holidays then they are in the US).

Food - is just delicious and I think mostly organic. Soups are common, potatoes always accompany meat and salad. There's a lot of meat balls, sausages, something called 'bigos' (boiled cabbage with meat and tomatoes), beets, carrots, pork, chicken and ducks (with the regional specialty being 'the duck soup' and lots of cakes.

Music and film used to try to make people think, now it's becoming more for entertainment (there are positives and negatives of both sides). Education is very difficult and health care is in crisis .
Geographically, there is sea in the north, mountains in the south and a nice lake region in the middle...

I am really enjoying the (positive) posts on this thread. None of us can claim that we dont have preconceived ideas about other countries, and while we can all Google, there is nothing quite the same as learning from other "ordinary" people.

Whilst this is a website about Turkey, we have a wonderful opportunity, as such a mixed bag of ethinic and culturally different people, to share the positive aspects of our lives and traditions in the Off-Topic. Talking to other people is a far better way to dispell racism and ethnic discrimination than any amount of media intervention. It is amazing that, through all our diverse religions and cultures, how similar all our lives really are

I hope more people contribute

I agree with the previous post in that if you have questions ask someone from that culture or religion.
Specifically to Canli, I DON'T want to be represented by George Bush (how embarrasing!) My experience with Turkish people though is they are very aware that many of the American people are different than the government that represents them. (same in Turkey) We are obviously different than the media represents us as well. Rap video's and Mafia movies are not a good way to understand American Culture! It is like watching Old Western movies with John Wayne and expecting to find that in Texas. (Although in parts of Oklahoma it isn't far off!) Also every American's perspective on holidays is changed by the amount their family practices their religion, which religion they practice (there are many), their families ethnicity, what region they are from and more. It is good to talk to lots of different people!

Just a few traditions in the Netherlands:

On April 30th we have every year our ‘Queens day’, a national holiday where people are dressed in orange (Orange is the official last name of our royalty), make fun, terraces are filled to the last chair, a flee market is in every little village or town and the royal family visits two places in the country. There they are ‘treated’ to old-Dutch games as sack-races, ‘koek-happen’ (eating cookies?), well I can’t explain, see for yourself: http://www.bibliotheekdenhaag.nl/agenda/images/koekhappen.jpg (this is our crown prince Willem-Alexander….)

When you have a baby it’s tradition you treat visitors, friends and colleagues on ‘beschuit met muisjes’ (rusk with sugar-coated aniseed). Again, see for yourself – it tastes delicious – pink is for girls and blue for boys: http://doof.nl/archief/beschuit.jpg

When it freezes a lot (more than minus 10 degrees for at least 5 days) we have a large ice skating tour in the northern province of Friesland, called ‘Elfstedentocht’ (eleven cities tour). A route of over 220 km! But because we don’t have that temperature every year, the last one was held in 1997. 16.000 people skated that year this monster tour (and many more wanted but were rejected) while hundreds of thousands people are watching them live.

Traditional food? First the herring. Two kinds: the raw salted ones with onions (yuk!) you have to slide through your throat like this: http://www.hollandcourier.com/wk-24_Ze_zijn_er_nu_echt_de_Hollandse_Nieuwe.jpg and the other one is pickled herring with gherkin (very nice). Other typical Dutch food are the several types of stew: hutspot (hotchpotch), boerenkool (kail) or zuurkool (sauerkraut).

Foreigners always say we are famous for a few things: tulips (actually Turkish….), wind mills, clogs and (Gouda) cheese. But they mostly find our ‘red light district’ in Amsterdam very interesting as well….

We used to be known for tolerance and freedom but, very much to my regrets, that’s becoming less and less. Borders are closing more and more for newcomers out of the EU, regulations for those who want to live here are tightened. Nationalism is growing awfully, we now have a political party in parliament (9 out of 150 ) that wants to send back all foreigners who don’t speak fluently Dutch or are unemployed. We also have Amsterdam, once the gay capital of Europe. Not that all people live there are gay, but there are many bars and tolerance was huge towards other lifestyles. Also that name we lost, fights are almost every week.

To end, some facts: The Netherlands are 1/21 of the size of Turkey; we have two official languages – Dutch and (in the north) Frisian; partly my country is below sea level; in the north there is sea and 5 inhabited islands, in the west there is sea, south Belgium and in the east Germany. My country is quite flat, only in the southeast there are some hills and our only ‘mountain’ of 324 metre high….