Discovering Christmas Through Cultural Exchange 

This month's activity is very meaningful in our Connecting Cultures: Friendship Across Oceans and Seas project, which is our Christmas Card Exchange. Although Christmas is not celebrated in Türkiye, our students have had the opportunity to learn about this important tradition through their friends in Poland and Greece.

Before this activity, many of our students have been thinking that Christmas and New Year are the same celebration. As they have explored different cultures, they discovered that Christmas is a religious and cultural holiday celebrated on 25 December, while New Year's Day marks the beginning of a new calendar year on 1 January. They have learned that although Turkish people celebrate the New Year, Christmas is not part of our national traditions.

Yet we are not stranger to Christmas customs such as decorating Christmas trees, exchanging gifts, singing carols, spending time with family and sending Christmas cards. However, it is nice to see how our partners celebrate this important day. 

By exchanging handmade and digital Christmas cards and warm wishes, our students have realized that traditions may be different, but the values behind them are very similar. Kindness, love, hope, gratitude and spending time with family are universal values that connect people across cultures.

This activity has helped our students develop cultural awareness, respect for diversity and curiosity about other traditions. It has also showed them that learning about another culture does not mean giving up their own culture-it means understanding, appreciating and celebrating our differences while recognizing what we have in common.

Through this simple but meaningful exchange, our students have taken another step toward becoming open-minded, respectful and responsible global citizens. After all, friendship grows stronger when we learn from one another.