In Vietnam, Christmas was celebrated joyously with people thronging city roads right from Christmas Eve, which is often more important than Christmas Day!

Famous Cathedral in Hanoi

Christmas is one of the four most important festivals of the Vietnamese year, including the birthday of Buddha, the New Year and the Mid-autumn Festival. Although the Christians observed the religious rituals of Christmas.

Traditional Vietnamese religions are Buddhism and the Chinese philosophies of Taoism and Confucianism. However, during French rule, many people became Christians, that occupy 8 to 10 percent of whose population. This is because the Vietnamese are a fun-loving, sociable people and the various Vietnam festivals and events are actually occasions for them to a gala time, all together. Christmas in Vietnam is a grand party.

History Of Christmas In Vietnam

Christmas in Vietnam has had a tumultuous history. The Catholics are a minority in Vietnam but they used to celebrate Christmas in Vietnam quite in peace right from the days of the French rule. That is until the Communists took over political power in 1975. The church-state relations soured during that time and the Catholics were relegated to celebrating Jesus’s birthday in privacy.

Since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, church-state relations have not always been smooth. However, they have been improving since the introduction of economic reforms in the late 1980s. Liberalist policies adopted since the 1980s saw Vietnam warming up to western influences and ideals and Christmas in Vietnam came back triumphantly. Now Christmas is one of the major festivals in Vietnam, celebrated with much fanfare by all religious communities.

Phat Diem Cathedral in Ninh Binh Province is considered the spiritual home for the seven million Catholics who live in Vietnam, a predominantly Buddhist nation. Hundreds of Catholics gather for Christmas Eve Mass in the northern city of Phat Diem. Children staged a nativity play to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ – or Kito, as he is known in Vietnamese — in front of the city’s cathedral, built in 1891.

Christmas In Vietnam

Christmas in Vietnam is a huge event, especially in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and the Vietnamese Christmas celebrations here are like any other city in the western world. The Christians in Vietnam attend a Midnight mass on Christmas Eve and return home to a sumptuous Christmas dinner. The Christmas dinner usually consists of chicken soup while wealthier people eat turkey and Christmas pudding.

Christmas tree at Fortuna Hotel (Hanoi)

On Christmas Eve, Vietnamese people in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, especially young people, like to go into the city centre, where there is a Catholic Cathedral. The streets are crowded with people on Christmas Eve and in the city centre cars are not allowed for the night.

People celebrate by throwing confetti, taking pictures and enjoying the Christmas decorations and lights of big hotels and department stores. Lots of cafes and restaurants are open for people to enjoy a snack!

Vietnam used to be part of the French Empire and there are still French influences in the Christmas traditions. Many Catholic churches have a big nativity crib scene or ‘creche’ with nearly life size statues of Mary, Joesph, baby Jesus, the shepherds and animals. In some areas of Ho Chi Minh City, usually in Catholic parishes, people have big crib scenes in front of their houses and decorate the whole street, turning it into a Christmas area! These are popular for people to visit and look at the scenes.

Also like in France, the special Christmas Eve meal is called ‘reveillon’   and has a ‘bûche de Noël’ (a chocolate cake in the shape of a log) for desert. Vietnamese people like to give presents of food and at Christmas a bûche de Noël is a popular gift. Other Christmas presents are not very common, although some young people like to exchange Christmas cards.

The Yuletide spirit of giving and sharing has been embraced with an earnest by the Vietnamese. Generous as they are, the Vietnamese give out gifts and presents in plenty during the Christmas celebrations in Vietnam. However, the children are more keen to have their stockings and shoes stuffed in with goodies from Santa’s bulging sack. The European customs of Santa Claus and the Christmas tree were popular and children would leave their shoes out on Christmas Eve.

Tet Nguyen Dan, more commonly known by its shortened name Tet, is the most important and popular holiday in Vietnam. It is a relaxing and special occasion for everyone to think about the achievements of the past year and plan for the New Year. A “Mam Ngu Qua” (five-fruit tray) on the ancestral altar during Tet holiday symbolizes the admiration and gratitude of the Vietnamese to Heaven and Earth and their ancestors, and demonstrates their aspiration for prosperity.

For a long time, together with horizontal lacquered boards engraved with Chinese characters, parallel sentences written on crimson paper, ornamental kumquat and peach trees, and popular Hang Trong and Dong Ho pictures, the five‑fruit tray prepared for Tet has transcended its material value to become a spiritual symbol, an original national product in the spiritual life of the Vietnamese. At present, while many of the ancient spiritual values have sunk into oblivion, the custom of arranging the five‑fruit tray on the altar during the lunar New Year days is being jealously preserved as a fine legacy of Vietnam’s traditional culture. The buying of votive offerings and the decoration of ancestral altars during the traditional New Year days are closely connected with the rituals of worship practiced by the Vietnamese towards their ancestors. During these New Year days, in addition to such national dishes and products as “Fat pork, salted onions, parallel sentences written on red paper. Long bamboo poles planted upright, strings of firecrackers, and square glutinous rice cakes”, it is indispensable for each Vietnamese family to display a five‑fruit tray on the ancestral altar for Tet.

No matter whether rich or poor, on New Year’s Eve, it is also very important for the Vietnamese to select the best five-fruit tray. The fruits are placed on a red-lacquered wooden tray and arranged in a balanced cone and in harmonious colours. Fruits that may be laid out on the tray include bananas, finger citrons, watermelons, oranges, kumquats, coconuts, apples, persimmons or tomatoes, and chilis. Each kind of fruit has its own indication. A hand of green bananas or a finger citron, for example, symbolises one’s wish for the protection of supernatural powers and ancestors, pomelos and watermelons indicate fertility, and kumquats or persimmons connote wealth and prosperity.

Custom of the five‑fruit tray…

One theory says that the five fruits are symbolic of the five basic elements of oriental philosophy – metal, wood, water, fire and soil. Other theories regard the tray as symbolic of the fruits of a family’s hard work throughout the past year, which are consecrated to heaven and earth and their ancestors as sign of respect and gratitude.

A five-fruit tray, though varying from one region to another due to differences in climate and fruit crops, light up altars with their ample colours. In northern areas, five-fruit trays ornamented with pomelos, peaches, kumquats, bananas and persimmons are relatively smaller than those in southern areas with pairs of watermelons, coconuts, papayas, custard apples, mangos, and figs. Improvements in people’s living conditions in recent years have led to a greater sophistication in choosing fruits for the altar for the Tet holiday. A tray may contain more expensive, rarer fruits like grapes and pears, but all in all it is still a five-fruit tray, a nice offering of the Vietnamese people to their ancestors. It not only displays a life-long tradition but also sends a message of hope for happiness, good luck and prosperity for the new year.

The custom of displaying the five‑fruit tray as votive offerings at the holy place of the house has been reflected in many popular legends and tales. It has originated from ancient popular beliefs observed from one generation to another in their worship towards their forefathers. To this day, the Vietnamese still observe a long‑standing custom of placing the first ripe fruits harvested from the home garden on the altar and burning incense sticks in memory of their ancestors.

Preparation for a five‑fruit tray

Like other popular rituals, the preparation of a five‑fruit tray for Tet has become an established convention. Although it is called a five‑fruit tray, it does not necessarily contain exactly five kinds of fruit. Arranging fruits on the crimson, hourglass‑shaped wooden tray is really an art. One has to combine the colours and shapes of the different fruits in arranging them on the tray to make it look like a still life picture.

To ensure balance on the tray, one usually places the hand of bananas in the middle with the bananas pointing upright and the pomelo on the concave surface of the hand of bananas. Then one puts the oranges, sapodilla plums, apples, etc. in the gaps between the bananas and the pomelo. The last little gaps are filled in with little kumquats to create a full, compact tray of fruits. In colours, the fruit‑tray presents a harmonious combination of the different colours of fruits: dark green of banana, light yellow of pomelo, deep red of persimmon, reddish‑yellow of orange and kumquat, light green of apple, and dark brown of sapodilla plum. To complete the picture, the fruit‑tray will be covered here and there with some small, fresh leaves of kumquat.

The “Mam Ngu Qua” in Tet festival represent the quintessence that Heaven and Earth bless humans. This is one of the general perceptions of life of the Vietnamese, which is “Ăn quả nhớ kẻ trồng cây” (“When taking fruit, you should think of the grower”)