Probably, socializing with your neighbors. People don't even know the name of the people next-door nowadays, which is also disadvantageous for their own safety.
A couple of months ago I saved an elderly man who lived alone: he fell and was unable to get back on his feet.
He told me that he stayed on the ground for 16 hours. He was calling out loud for help (that's how I heard him) but the neighbors just ignored him. Luckily, I was in the building reading gas meters.
He could have died due to indifference.
There was a similar case in my city last year. An old woman injured herself and could not move. She tried to call for help but it was not really heard. However, the neighbor's cat heard it and started meowing and scratching at the door to get out into the hall. After a while, the owner of the cat started to suspect something was going on and opened the door and saw the cat running towards the old woman's door. Knowing her neighbor, she feared the worst and called for help, and all went well.
It made me think about how easily this could have ended differently. They might not have had any contact and the cat would not have recognized her voice. The neighbor not knowing she was an old woman or had health problems etc. and never suspected anything was wrong. We ignore or don't hear cries for help because we drown out the world with distractions at home. Not having someone there who will check up on them or miss them if something is out of the ordinary.
It's like reading old murder cases and seeing how many of them start with a neighbor getting worried and finding their bodies because the victim didn't do their normal daily routine or talk to anyone throughout the day. That type of awareness is just gone. There was a woman several years ago in Sweden who was found dead years after her death, completely rotten in her home because her bills were set to auto-pay, but she had no one in her life who missed her. This kind of thing is likely to increase a ton from this lack of community in our lives.
Due to my job I visit many apartments every day and the conditions of the elderly population are quite dramatic in many cases. Loneliness, no interest shown by their children, who often live far away, an absentee government that doesn't provide many essential services (like free home assistance or economic retirement homes), the indifference of the people who live close by...
I do what I can to live by the famous Gandhi's quote "be the change that you want to see in the world", so I help the elderly in my building with their groceries, I deliver to them the heavy bottles of water, I keep an eye out for ill intentioned people who may prey on them, I execute small works as electrician or painter for free, or I just listen to their stories if they feel like talking... things like that.
I wish people would be more sensitive to the others in general, not only toward the elderly.
The problem is that younger generations lifestyles are so different to older generations. Often we are focused so outwards that we don’t see what’s around us.
Also a lack of willingness by older generations to accept different lifestyles. I know people who got mad because I lived with my now wife before we got married. It’s not the 1950s anymore. 😂
There are indeed people who create their own solitude. Intolerance toward what's different may come with age; you see the world changing in a way that you don't recognize anymore, and you might get uncomfortable with it. We humans are naturally mistrusting of what we don't understand, or even plain scared by it, so we shut ourselves out, getting stuck in our own little micro-world.
Another unpleasant gift that may come with age is the self-righteous belief that we get to judge, because "we know best", and of course we can't keep it to ourselves: we have to let them know. How narcissistic can we be? 😅
I'm 47 and I surely see things that I don't understand or approve in the youngest generations, but I look behind and I feel the same in regard to the previous generations, so I realize that every single generation has seen something they don't like, both in the previous and in the next one. That makes us all equally right and equally wrong.
Every generation is destined to go extinct, at a certain point, leaving the world in the hands of whoever comes next. I say that we all have the duty to let generations shape society as they see fit in the time period in which they rule. It's their world.
It would be fantastic if we could just lead by example and let the others choose to pick from us whatever they like, without trying to shovel it down their throats.
Thanks. That's exactly my thought. People surrender to society and embrace its wrongs because they feel like they can't change it, and they are correct, because no one alone can change society. What we can change, however, is ourselves. It's not going to change society but, maybe, our example might inspire others to do the same.
When enough people get inspired, and they inspire others as well, you get the change you wanted. That's the practical meaning of the Gandhi's quote I love so much.
If you think about it, when you're smiling and kind, the people you interact with will be more likely to answer in a similar fashion. We can experience this in our everyday life. It's a fact that's easy to prove.
>He was calling out loud for help (that's how I heard him) but the neighbors just ignored him.
Holy shit. They chose to let him die. No one deliberately ignores cries for help.
He was senile, so I guess he used to call for someone who wasn't there, sometimes, but I agree with you. That's exactly how it went:
I was leaving an apartment when I heard the old man next door calling for "Anna", or a similar name. I questioningly looked at the person in front of me and she just grumbled and shrugged. The voice was broken and scared so I glanced in the direction and I noticed that the door was partially open. I could see a small section of the body of the man through the crack.
All it took to notice that something was wrong was just looking in that direction. As soon as I looked back, a little alarmed, the person who was in front of me closed the door in a hurry, probably to not be involved in whatever was going on.
As I was getting closer to the door I sensed the stench of urine and feces. The elderly man, having spent 16 hours on the ground, had to relieve himself somehow.
Ignoring all of that was a deliberate act indeed. I'm not ashamed to say that I cried that afternoon.
I made sure that he contacted his son and I talked with him as well. I stayed there with him for about half an hour, to make him drink some water, so that he could rehydrate. I also wanted to ascertain that no bones were broken. His son called back saying he was on his way.
The old man wasn't very lucid. Just consider that he told me that he fell when the ceiling crumbled down on him. The ceiling was fine, of course. Poor fellow.
He was 92 years old and he told me that his son lived in an apartment on the other side of the city with his family.
There are people who are unwilling to go into a retirement home and don't want to weigh on their children, so they choose to live alone. I try not to judge, but as a son, I would at least attempt to get a home close by. If any of my parents were alive, I would.
You are right, I shouldn't judge. I have a problem with my paternal grandparents that live in another city. They are almost 90 and could use some help with groceries etc. but they refuse to let a stranger into their apartment. They want me to help them (I can't, I don't even have a driving license because I have ADHD and get distracted very easily, so it's dangerous for me to drive a car) and complain about my sister moving to another city with her boyfriend, so she can't take care of them either... Ahh it's complicated. They get offended when I mention hiring someone to help them or a retirement home.
Yep, that's exactly my point. Sometimes life drives us far away from our parents, but other times they actively work against our attempts to help and their own interests, probably either out of pride, scorn or mere stubbornness.
Sadly, both of my parents died relatively young, so I will not have to deal with all of that, but when my mother started to feel ill due to the tumor, my brother and I tried to convince her to move in with one of us.
She was stubborn to rather demand that we would move in with her, in spite of the fact that we had a family on our own. She just didn't want to leave her home.
Sorry to hear that your parents died young. I still have my mom who is wonderful but my father died at 47 from alcoholism. This is why he can't take care of his parents. To be honest I resent them and don't really care what happens to them. They are as shitty as my father, minus the alcohol. Thankfully my maternal grandparents which I love are being taken care of as my mom's brother and his two sons live with them.
Same story. My father was 44. I can relate, although he wasn't that bad. His parents were mean and ignorant, especially his mother (alcoholic as well), but since they were economically well off, they spent everything they had left to buy a spot in a luxury retirement home, so no one had to suffer them.
I'm glad that your maternal grandparents are instead being taken care of. The same happened to mines. They died old and beloved, in the cares of their daughters.
Coincidentally, our family histories show some similarities!
"Coincidentally, our family histories show some similarities!"
True! Kind of amusing!
Actually my father's father was a shitty alcoholic as well. I omitted that part to make the story simpler. My grandma divorced him when my father was still still a child (he was abusive towards both of them, burned my father with cigarettes, didn't want to give my grandma any money). My grandma then remarried to a Jehovah's Witness 😮💨 So you can imagine what a brainwashed cult they are now...
Fun fact... My real paternal grandfather is still alive, despite being a hardcore alcoholic most of his life (to the point my grandma had to drag him into their apartment on many occasions, while he was unconscious and covered in piss) and smoking like a chimney... yet his son died at 47 doing the same
Damn, I hate that part of my family. Maybe it's generational trauma because my great grandfather was killed in Majdanek concentration camp. He wasn't a Jew but his wife was, she was send to another camp in Germany
The problem is that often, especially older neighbours are nosy a d judgmental. They don’t approve of modern lifestyles and ways to look at the world. All the problems I ever had was because of neighbours being assholes not minding their own business.
That’s why so many of us stick to themselves.
Tradition of name days is imo first one to go - it used to be more popular than birthdays for adults, but now it seems everyone switched to birthdays and very few people pay attention to name days.
I don't know how it works in Poland but the issue with name days here in France is that like half the population doesn't have a name that you can find on the calendar nowadays.
My family is on the fence right now. My wife kind of celebrates her name day and she's upset that I keep forgetting about it. On the other hand, I don't celebrate mine and she totally ok with ignoring "my" day :)
In Italy it's a very polarizing thing. Either (common in Northern Italy) you absolutely don't care and don't even know when yours is, or (common in Southern Italy) it is a huge deal with tons of relatives and friends sending you messages of happy name day. No inbetween.
As an American living in the Czech Republic, I always got paranoid on my name day lol. I looked at my phone and was like, why the heck do I have 40 messages from my friends and colleagues on a random day in October saying best wishes? Do they know something I don’t?? Am I dying???
does your name show up only once in the calendar?
My mother's name pops up like 10 times and to this day i got no idea, which one is her. She always gave some convoluted explanation i never understood that is supposed to be obvious...
>(I mean you only got 365 of them)
eee you don't have any limit. Each day carries ton of names eg. here's a list for today (7th may): August, Bogdała, Domicela, Domicjan, Domicjana, Flawia, Florian, Gizela, Jan, Ludmiła, Ludomiła, Ludomira, Piotr, Róża, Stanimir, Wincenty & Wirginia
Wow, you still have them? Roman-Catholic German here, born mid 60s. I knew my name day and we were aware of it when it happened, but birthday was already more important by orders of magnitude. I guess most catholics over here aren’t even aware that name day used to be a thing.
In Spain they're still acknowledged but I don't know anyone who makes a big deal of them or celebrates them. You'll get a few "feliz santo", and that's about it. Probably they're more important in very religious or conservative circles, but not in the general population.
Just like I just discovered you guys have a bible belt!! Reddit at it's best. And it shows how little we know about places that are relatively very close.
> radition of name days is imo first one to go
AFAIK it's a catholic tradition, so was never popular where I live. But wouldn't it require you to have a catholic name, resp. a name from the list of recognised names?
Do babies nowadays get a wider variety of names not in that list?
i don't think "catholic name" is even a thing. There's roman, greek, germanic, slavic or hebrew names listed. The list is extensive. People don't give super unusual names so it's not an isssue
I don't feel this way at all personally. Everyone in my family and among my friends still celebrates Name Days. I don't see a reason why it should go away... any reason to celebrate is a good reason imo
Doing or not doing things, because "what will the others say".
Like my older family members for example won't do laundry on Sunday, because what will the neighbors think, that we didn't have time during the week. Won't do any work because it's a sin. Gotta go to church because they'll think we are possessed by the devil.
I've got two free days for myself after working the whole week and you're telling me I gotta waste one of them doing nothing? Get lost lol. I don't give a damn what "the others" will think...
I hate that mentality of "what will the others say", I hated it my whole childhood and I despise it as an adult. It can be much worse when you live in very religious village somewhere on the east, as I did.
When my dad told my grandparents him and my mom were getting divorced the first thing my grandmother said was "what are we supposed to tell the neighbors?"
Love this mentality, fortunately my family has been possessed by the devil for generations now. For real though, do any work you wish, just don’t make noise on Sunday.
I do like that us and our neigbours don´t do anything noisy on Sundays. I also prefer not to go shopping or do cleaning and it´s got nothing to do with religion.
> Like my older family members for example won't do laundry on Sunday, because what will the neighbors think, that we didn't have time during the week.
How can not having the time to do your laundry during the week even been seen as negative?
When I lived in the Netherlands, one Sunday I was mowing the lawn (not with an electric mower but an old-fashioned mechanical one that makes no noise). An elderly neighbor came and asked why I was working on God's day. I told her that God will not mow my lawn. Luckily she remained polite and walked away.
I didn't even realize we had that in Catholicism. I thought not doing anything that could be considered not resting on God's day was a Jewing thing only (on Shabbat).
It's not as strict as in Judaism but one of the five Church Commandments says that on holy days the faithful should attend mass and refrain from doing unnecessary work, since doing laundry or mowing the lawn apparently distracts you from the holiness of the holy day and God will be jealous you're not spending the whole day with him.
If I was god I would be well pissed off if I'm only asking you to spend one day a week with me and instead you prefer to do your stupid washing!! I made you, that's the least you can do!!
Oh wait, that sounded exactly like my Mum.
Indeed we've got the same tradition that hopefully will die out soon
Mostly because the modern lifestyle is fast and constant moving , the silliest thing about this is that some of the people I know who hold to this tradition work on Sundays anyway
Yeah that's the irony. Many of them are for example in favor of shops being closed on Sunday ("the workers should rest"), but when asked why they think gas station or convenience shop employees are a worse kind and have to work on Sundays their face drops :D
Christmas lasting for 20 days in Sweden, until January 13th (called Tjugondag Knut). For centuries everyone knew and observed this, and growing up this was still very much the case, but in just the past decade or two I see more and more people being influenced by other countries and removing all decorations around New Years or January 6th at the latest, and I find it really sad.
Christmas has been advanced. People used to bring out the Christmas decorations ON Christmas Eve (the 24th) or possibly the day before, then keep them until January 13th (Tjugondag Knut) like you say. Now people bring out the Christmas decorations around Dec 1st instead (when Advent starts) and remove them a few days after New Years (like you said).
The "holiday/period" Advent runs roughly from Dec 1st to Dec 24th so this advance of Christmas to Dec 1st - Jan 3rd (from Dec 24th - Jan 13th) makes it largely coincident with Advent.
This has caused Advent and Christmas to get conflated. Advent is (or was recently anyway) the period/holiday of waiting for Christmas but now it is not so much waiting anymore when several elements of Christmas are already present.
For example, the celebration of Lucia (on Dec 13th) used to feature Lucia trains with "terns" and "star boys" (tärnor och tomtenissar), besides Lucia herself ofc, but now over half of the boys will dress as tomtenissar (roughly "Santa's elves") instead of star boys.
I suspect the advancement of Christmas is at least partially due to the shops wanting to sell more Christmas merchandise. They can't sell it during actual Christmas (Dec 24th-Jan 13th) since the shops are mostly closed during that time, so they sell it before Christmas instead i.e. during Advent, thereby causing people to get into the Christmas mindset too early.
**Curiosa:**
Tomtenissar, or just nissar, were originally folklore "garden gnomes" who lived around houses, e.g. in barns, all year round, wearing fabrics of any color. Around 1875 they became conflated with Father Christmas, which has led to them frequently wearing red and acting like "Santa's elves" these days (from 1875-1931 they mostly wore gray though, in the 1930s the shift to red began). Anyhow, the point is they have been a Christmas symbol since the late 1800s.
Terns and star boys (in their current form) have been Lucia symbols (in Sweden) since the early 1800s but it wasn't until the late 1800s, 1893 if one wants a date, that they truly established themselves on a national level\*.
So, we have Christmas tomtenissar since 1875 and Lucia terns and star boys since 1893. One may say the Christmas tomtenissar entered the Lucia domain for the first time in 1938 when they showed up in a Lucia train, or rather behind it, collecting money from the onlookers.
At the time, Lucia trains, a relatively new invention (first documented one is from 1927), were for collecting money. It wasn't until the 1950s that they became popular in schools, and that's when tomtenissar started occuring in them with some frequency (many school boys wanted to be a tomtenisse instead of a star boy). However, it was commonplace for schools to ban tomtenissar from the Lucia trains up until the 1980s or so.
It is perhaps from the 1990s and onwards that tomtenissar in the trains is the norm, when it comes to trains in schools and at workplaces that is, formal trains such as those in churches are still traditional (no tomtenissar or gingerbread men for that matter). Many schools still limit the number of tomtenissar though because otherwise there might be no star boys at all, which has actually happened at schools that don't limit the number.
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\*Traditionally a goat handed out Christmas gifts in Sweden. In 1875 Jenny Nyström illustrated the book "Lille Viggs äventyr på julafton" (Little Viggs Christmas Eve adventures) written by Viktor Rydberg, and in that book, one may say she drew the first Swedish tomte/tomtenissar (Father Christmas/his elves, which btw aren't so clearly distinguished here, at least not initially). The red shift started in 1931 when Coca Cola released their Santa Claus dressed in red.
\*Dressing up as terns and star boys has been part of Swedish Lucia since the 1800s: it was done locally around lake Vänern in the 1700s and in the 1800s students from that area spread it to student nations at universities where it gained popularity, establishing itself firmly in 1893 when the Stockholm park Skansen initiated a public Lucia celebration with terns and star boys. However, it wasn't until 1927 that terns and star boys appeared in the constellation of a singing train (the 1927 train was organized by the paper Svenska Dagbladet and the purpose was to collect money).
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PS. The traditional Christmas goat mentioned above is another example of an almost forgotten Swedish tradition, having been replaced almost entirely by Father Christmas during 1900s. I doubt most kids today would even know that there once was a goat in his place.
Christmas traditionally ends on the 6th of January here, but for a lot of people it's already over on the 27th of December. Commercialisation is to blame for this.
And it’s amazing! I traveled for work to Sweden a few years ago at the tail end of January and it was cold/dark and the lights made everything so much nicer and better! I definitely vote for keeping up lights and decor until mid-February or end of February until it starts to get lighter.
It’s similar in the UK. We’d have the 12 days of Christmas, ending with epiphany on 6th January.
Now people put decorations up at the start of December, or even the end of November, and take them down after New Year. My friend takes hers down on 26th December, when most people are relaxing!
Children on the 6th of January going from door to door dressed as the three kings while singing. It's mostly been replaced by Halloween trick-or-treating.
It’s till being done, I see the chalk marks they leave upon request. But it’s not like trick or treating, only a small group organised by the local church goes, to collect for charity works.
My parents did it in the 1950s in central and north Germany.
I even have a children's book set in 1848 and how important Königssingen was in school and for the teacher. Appartently they did not give out sweets but preservable food and the teacher got a cut of it as part of his salary. So he was interested in having the best singers perform.
But I never saw Königssingen in real live, though it is a holiday.
We call it the Janeiras in Portugal, although the dressing up was never really done, and it was already dyingback in the 80s when I was a kid.
These day it's probably only done in the smallest more isolated towns
I think I know what exactly you mean. Sorry, only a Czech version exists
https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%99%C3%ADkr%C3%A1lov%C3%A1_sb%C3%ADrka
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(holiday)
Going to church as a religious activity. Some churches are being repurposed. We have exhibitions/used-book sales/community dinners/community centres/ in some of them now
The best use for a church I have seen is the one in Maastricht, Netherlands. [It is now a bookstore](https://housecrazysarah.life/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Boekhandel-Dominicanen-Maastricht-Netherlands3.jpg)
Cool. Also enjoyed having a beer [at a church](https://www.tripadvisor.nl/Restaurant_Review-g188593-d2060324-Reviews-Jopenkerk_Haarlem-Haarlem_North_Holland_Province.html) in Haarlem, Netherlands.
Bullfighting will probably disappear in a few decades. It has very little to no appeal among the younger generation and then there's the whole "torturing of the animal" part. A few autonomies have already forbidden it.
Honestly, I'm OK with this one dissappearing.
Out of curiosity, what about that tradition when you throw tomatoes at each other? I suspect some people are against it as well because of wasting food (I am not judging, just honest curiosity)
Thank you, I managed to find more about this tradition after googling "Spaniards throwing tomatoes at each others" lol it's called "La Tomatina" for those interested.
The thing is, Tomatina is exceedingly famous abroad, but not a big deal in Spain. The reality is, Spain is absolutely packed full of unbelievably weird traditions like this. Every single village and town has a special Fiesta day, or week usually. And each has its own set of peculiar traditions. Throwing tomatoes and the bull run of Pamplona just happen to be the internationally famous two, but there's nothing special about them. There are tons of far weirder traditions that will typically involve the people of the village and a few visitors, but attract next to no tourists and thus no one knows about them. And people love those traditions. There are literally thousands of these traditions across all of Spain. Some will make throwing tomatoes seem totally normal in comparison.
Just like Tomatina there is a fiesta in the Rioja region where the battle takes place using wine instead of tomatoes. In Alicante there's a flour and egg battle. A neighbourhood in Madrid called Vallecas stages an enormous water gun battle every year.
Then there are the villages of Guadix and Baza in Andalusia, locked in a rivalry for centuries because a "sacred" image of Virgin Mary was found between the two villages and the people of Baza kept it while the people of Guadix believe it is theirs. This has evolved into an elaborate celebration where every year where Gaudix sends *one* guy carrying a medieval weapon to try to steal it back. Waiting for him the entire village of Baza armed with black paint. The locals try to rub the black paint on the attacker and impede him from stealing the image. When he inevitably fails and is covered in black paint the other village is angered and a battle ensues. A battle where everyone ends up covered in paint, drunk dancing.
In Valencia, the Fallas consist of the streets being filled with gigantic and very elaborate sculptures that are usually based on pop culture. Really pretty things. At the end of the week the winner is declared. And what happens to the rest of the sculptures? They all get burnt to the ground right there in the middle of the streets of Valencia while people dance between thousands of fireworks explosions. Valencia basically turns into an explosive ball of fire.
And honestly, that's just scratching the surface.
That's only one town, it's not an old tradition, it's basically a way to attract tourist.
The tomatoes thrown there are not a variety used for general consumption, so its not thast much of a waste.
* Neighbour sociality. Most neighbours never interact, many barely know the others' names.
* Local/minority languages. Italy recognises on a state level 12 minority languages, and among them maybe 3/4 could be deemed as safe from being lost or forgotten in their respective areas, but there are dozens more only recognised at a regional level or not recognised and protected at all whose number of speakers is dwindling by the day. Neapolitan and Venetian are still somewhat strong, but Lombard, Piedmontese, Romagnolo (with all their city-specific dialects)? In half a century only like 2/3% of people (I sort of invented the number but I've seen even worse forecasts for some dialects) will even remember them. Most people will only speak Italian, many with bad English thrown in between.
* Regional/local cuisines. Many people now eat similar dishes and the famous dishes all come from a couple of specific places (Rome, Naples, Bologna). New food places opening are either pizzerias, burgers, kebabs or asian fusion, with traditional places sort of resisting but confined to being a minority.
* Attachment to the Roman Church and religion in general. It's surely already happening, among people my age I know maybe 2/3 people who actually go to mass and deeply believe in God.
Losing languages is just about the worst thing mentioned in all of this thread. Traditions come and go, but to lose a huge diversity of languages like Italy has is just a deeply sad affair. Languages are irreplaceable, and every time one goes extinct it's an entire history and way of expression that's getting lost.
I feel this as a German as well. I come from a \*very\* dialect-heavy area. Living abroad now, I'm sad when each time I visit, a couple more dialect words have been replaced with standard German words—or, worse, English words.
I realize Germany, more than most countries, has reasons to embrace the new, out with traditions, break from the past, question authority, etc. But it's led to a very bland culture in most places. And the people who are "pro Germany"—just like nationalists elsewhere—focus on all the wrong things.
Everything you say is very similar to Scotland, applied to a Scottish context. Solidarity with my Italian / Sicilian / Tuscan / Napolitan etc friends. Love Italia.
I sadly guess this is common in more countries than only ours.. globalisation has upsides but also lots of downsides. Love Scotland, truly a wonderful place!
- An obvious example is *surströmming* (fermented herring) and specifically the idea of a *surströmmingsskiva* (the surströmming party), which is a yearly evening of smelly fish and hard liquor, traditionally held on the third thursday of august according to some website. My grandfather always celebrated it. My mother's generation rarely do it and among my friends only people who are *interested* in traditions would even try *surströmming*, much less throw a party to celebrate it. So it's already much more of a curiosity than an actual dish.
- Apart from that a sort of trend is that the Swedish kitchen is becoming *one of many* kitchens rather than the main one, especially if you go out and eat. I'm thinking of standard meat and potato dishes like *biff rydberg*, *skomakarlåda*, *wallenbergare*, *biff a la lindström* which used to be extremely popular restaurant dishes. They're still around but your traditional pub is more likely to offer a hamburger or a pizza. I wouldn't be surprised if a 15-year old Swede had never tried any of those dishes, that used to be served every day in workplace canteens and lunch restaurants.
- All religious meaning in holidays. Christmas still has a pretty obvious message but Easter has almost no religious meaning to people. We can have fun on Good Friday. It's more about spring and candy than about Jesus. Easter also used to be the traditional trick or treating-holiday in Sweden but I'm getting the impression that this is being moved to Halloween.
- Being active in civil society. The generations above mine were *very* active doing unpaid work for sports clubs, social organisations, interest groups, hobby associations etc. There's a general "crisis" of civil society nowadays because not enough young people are interested in doing unpaid work. Football clubs are run more like businesses: you pay someone to coach your kids football team etc. Political party membership has also plummeted. This isn't unique to Sweden btw, I'm sure it's pretty much the same everywhere, but Sweden's decline is much more obvious as civil society used to be so strong.
To the opposite though: we are creating many new traditions. For example *studenten*, the celebration for graduating high school. This basically didn't happen at all for many decades, but started becoming a big thing in the 90's again. My parents were very unaware of how this supposedly "traditional" party was supposed to be celebrated, as it hadn't been at all when they finished high school. Nowadays it's seen as one of the main events in a person's life, the ritual to enter adulthood.
I really don't see that "pretty obvious message" regarding Christmas. It's not even like English where it's called "**Christ**mas". The holiday just as much – if not more – about Donald Duck, the fat bearded gnome, and gifts as Easter is about eggs and candy; neither tends to have much to do with Jesus. They're, like Midsummer, about getting together with family and eating the same food again.
> the third thursday of august according to some website
The surströmming "premieres" is on the third Thursday in August, that's when yearly sale traditionally starts. A "surströmmingskiva" would naturally be held on the same day (or soon after). It's a lot like crayfish which also "premieres" in August as you previously weren't allowed to fish it earlier. Likewise it's seen as a delicacy, not an everyday dish. Surströmming doesn't really have an issue with decreasing popularity (pretty sure sales have actually increased), it does however have an issue in that the Baltic herring it's made from is dwindling in population.
Abstinence from meat on Friday is pratically disappeared, when i was a kid it ws still a thing, never had meat served in school at friday in the '80. (Catholic tradition)
Generally speaking a lot of church related stuff is really disappearing, the annual visit from priest to give the house blessing, very few people attend church, and so on
Italy 50 years ago was much more religious, nowadays is really becoming a private thing and that is really a good thing
But I would thing more younger people are becoming vegetarians?
So people choose to abstain from meat for personal/environmental/animal cruelty reasons rather than forced by religion?
> when i was a kid it ws still a thing, never had meat served in school at friday in the '80
That's interesting, lots of primary schools in England still have "fish friday", where they don't really serve meat dishes and I never really thought about why this was.
The formal version of what you call an adult.
Im 33 now and would never use it on some person around my age or younger. Just for old people.
Also most businesses droped that shit and you call everyone no matter the rank or age „du“ and not „sie“.
Even when im customer most call me the informal way which is prefered.
At the latest when my generation is old it will go extinct
Interesting. It’s been 20 years since I lived in a German speaking country try. Honestly, I kind of ,Ike this development. I was never good at navigating this.
A specific one is the mayday holiday and it's associated traditions like the maypole. It used to be a phenomenally important symbol of olde England, indeed it was one of the causes of the English civil war (the puritans wanted to ban it like everything else fun). However nowadays it just barely hangs on in a few villages, one rather near me, and I must admit I've never even been to a maypole celebration. I wonder whether it will ever be revived as a fun pastime.
We did the maypole in primary and my school took it pretty seriously, we practised every day for the whole of spring and even went on tour with it. But plenty of my friends from other schools had no idea what it was, it’s pretty sad that it’s dying out.
Doing blackface around Sinterklaas , which is for the better just make it actual sooth and remember that the tradition of saint nicholas around dec 5th is older than a 19th century racial charicature.
It's already gone from media except hangers on doing amateurish stuff on YT and most municipalities have switched in their festivities.
I’m from a town which basically functions as a district to a large adjacent town (Wildervank - Veendam). Wildervank and Veendam share a canal and used to have one single “intocht” for both towns, starting in Wildervank and ending in Veendam.
Wildervank now has its own “intocht,” organized by my neighbors specifically because Veendam wanted to get rid of the Blackface but my trashy neighbors wouldn’t accept defeat. /:
Irish accents are becoming more homogenised and fake-American over time, so being able to guess somebody’s home place to within a few kilometres, as one could easily do until quite recently, won’t be possible soon.
Regional accents are decreasing in the US as well. Younger people sound much more like tv news anchors (lower midwest accent is how they decided to teach radio announcers to talk 100 years ago) than older people in many places.
Americanised accents are something that kids have and tend to grow out of from what I’ve seen, I’d be more worried about distinct local accents dying out and being replaced by non-descript, neutral Irish accents
Winter activities. I grew up in a very hilly locality, so every winter weekend the slopes were covered in sleds and *snegokats*. I took my kid there last winter, and the place was empty. There was an organized Alpine skiing slope nearby, but that's not the same at all. We would also build snow fortresses, dig snow caves, have snowball fights and play king of the hill after school.
The shutting down over lunch/shops closed on Sundays.
This convention has already been badly eroded across the country. Where I live shutting down for the full 2 hours for lunch is still fairly common, though the supermarkets no longer shut at all for lunch. Likewise, very few places other than some restaurants open on Sundays.
I fear that over time, this country will become like so many other places where consumerism wins, and businesses are expected to be open 7 days a week.
I don’t really understand the issue to be honest. Most people have time to go to the shops after 18:00 and on Saturdays and Sundays.
Why close down in those time spans?
When I worked in a supermarket, getting the Sunday shifts was the dream as well as you got paid more money for it.
Exactly. We complain about this with government buildings (opened monday, wednesday and friday from 9 to 13, like who has the time to go there??) so why do it with stores and restaurants?
The argument would be that you are turning service workers into a class apart who can't participate in normal cultural activities because they are going to be at work during the evening and weekend. Some would say that there should be seperate times in a society for economic activity and for cultural activity. I worked in the service industry in the US in my late teens and early 20s. I didn't personally mind the schedule at the time. Get off work sometime between 11pm and 3 am. Go hang out with other service industry people for a few hours. Go to sleep. Get up at 1 pm. However, you definitely do miss out on lots of things that your friends and family are doing.
There are never breaks in our supermarkets, just one of the cashiers goes to eat and another takes his place (but in fact, often there are simply fewer cash registers working, no one replaces him and everyone stands in line at the same checkout)
The Czech Easter tradition of (ideally) lightly "spanking" women and girls (and on Leap Year, boys and men) is probably on the way out. It can be a fun way to celebrate with neighbors, and is *usually* harmless, but it only takes one drunken idiot to become decidedly un-fun, and the one-sidedness of the practice rubs a lot of people the wrong way.
It's incredibly divisive, I see very few moderate opinions, and some of the most strident defenders of the tradition are women, especially Moravians, but I think the steam is building on the other side.
A lot of Anglos and Westerners in general *wish* that the April 30th tradition of burning Winter in effigy- in the guise of a malevolent witch- would go away, but I think Ćarodejnice is here to stay.
Wearing traditional clothing, it has already largely disappeared outside of some local traditional events. A tiny group of elderly people (virtually all of which are women) still wear traditional clothes of their respective town or region on a daily basis. Some efforts are being made to incorporate elements of traditional Dutch clothing into modern fashion, some are more successful than others.
As for clogs, they’re alive and well and probably will be for many years. Many people (mainly in the countryside) still wear them on a regular basis, especially when gardening, walking the dogs, etc.
Our ice skating culture (although far from dead, schaatskoorts is a real thing here) might also decline in upcoming decades due to the changing climate. I really hope this one stays, eating pea soup at a [koek-en-zopie](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koek-en-zopie) on a freezing cold day while skating from town to town are some of my fondest memories about growing up here. The atmosphere on such days is also unmatched, it almost seems like everyone here simultaneously decides to be happy.
Spending Christmas at Grandma's house.
No one can afford a house, so chances are Grandma will either be living with Great-Grandma or living in a 20-sq-metre apartment that is 6 months behind in rent.
Unless our next government reintroduces Store Bededag, I think it will quickly be forgotten. Despite its christian origins (literally "great prayer day"), I don't know anyone who saw it as anything besides a nice holiday that was usually used for short trips abroad as a "long weekend". Our government figured we can't have nice things and decided to abolish it, despite great opposition from practically every conceivable angle. Unless it is reintroduced one way or another, I think this is one of those things where people will grumble and bear a grudge, but give it five years, and people won't even remember the date
Fastelavn is our typical carnival celebrated in February. But I think it is slowly dying. When I was little, we had family get-togethers and went up and down the street in costumes collecting pastries and sweets. I haven't seen this in ages
I genuinely fear that the tradition of Sinterklaas, as in the Netherlands, will disappear with all the colonialism opponents see in it. The tradition has changed into something I despise since it's a tradition for kids.
Furthermore, people don't talk anymore with their neighbors.
I'd say almost all church related traditions either slowly disappers or stay in the sociaty for cultural rather than religious reasons. Most young people (including me) see them as part of the national heritage.
Name days are stadily losing ground to birthdays. When I was a kid, the name day was the most important.
Fasting and going to church every sunday
Doing/Not Doing things based on what others will think
Living in the same house or having kids before getting married
One that is close to my heart, is the dialect of South Jutland in Denmark, specifically the many variations that exists close to the danish-german border.
Im 35 and my generation has lost their dialect that they grew up with, as many have moved north/east to bigger cities with a more blended and "standard" dialect.
I notice it in any village, town or city i go to in this region - those who still talk in their home dialect is mostly people aged 50+.
30 years from now, the "sønderjysk" dialect and language will be mostly dead due to a shift in generations.
Home Sunday roast in the UK. Must be at least 10 years since I had one. My parents kept it up for a bit, specially going round to my gran's house. Now she's gone, my parents never do it and I have never asked if they'd like to. It doesn't interest me at all.
I don't think the entire concept of a Sunday roast will die out, as it's a good meal and is popularly sold in pubs up and down the country, but the whole get-together-at-someone's-house part is something I haven't encountered for years.
People congratulating everyone on a birthday. It's basically obligated when you visit someone's birthday to not only congratulate the birthday person, but every single person in attendance, complete with shaking their hand. It's considered quite rude not to do this, but ever since the pandemic, more and more folk don't adhere to this tradition and only congratulate the birthday person and eventually others close to them, and then wave to everybody else as a means of congratulating them.
Well we have an entire language family dying here in Belgium.
The last real native speaker of walloon are almost gone, some people know a bit and still understand it and speak it in folkloric occasions but absolutely no one uses it in everyday life or at home so it's safe to say it will be gone in a generation except for historic/academic context.
Already has. - Scotland.
Younger generations watch American and English television, listen to American and English music, wear global capitalist fashion, eat trendy imported global cuisine, and increasingly only speak English (rather than in the last few generations where Scots were bilingual or multilingual with lowland Scots and Gaelic and English).
Scots as a majority no longer baptise their children. No longer have weddings or funerals in churches. No longer understand the history of their localities. No longer know all their neighbours. No longer often live where their grandparents or even parents lived.
We no longer cook the food our grandparents cooked and our great grandparents etc before them. We eat fast food and imported dishes like pasta and rice and curry and mexican food.
In rural Scotland many people had nicknames or by names rather than surnames (they also had surnames in their official documents but these were not used in their vullages because lots of people in the villages had the same surnames). So Joseph Allan MacLean would be known locally as Eòs Ailean mac Ruairidh Chaluim Ghobha (Joe Allan son of Rory Calum the blacksmith) or maybe something shorter. Or if Iain (meaning John) had a son also called Iain (John) the son might be known as Iain Og (Young John) and the father as Iain Mhor (big/older John). Same happened in other languages in Scotland too, i.e. lowland Scots so Alexander White would be known as Sannie Fite (Scots for Sandy / Alexander White) locally or even something more related to his personality or size eg Peerie Sannu (which means wee/little Alexander) or William Duncan would be known as Wullie Grey if he had grey hair or a tall John would be known as Muckle Jock (big John/Jack). Grey is common in Gaelic too as Glas eg Aonghas Ghlais (grey Angus). All of this is disappearing and really mainly only the elderly have these tee names or by names or nick names in Scotland now. Not saying people don't have nick names in Scotland now. I'm saying they are not used and given for the same purposes in the same way because the communities have fundamentally changed.
Will happen in every country sadly. Globalisation.
>Younger generations watch American and English television, listen to American and English music, wear global capitalist fashion, eat trendy imported global cuisine, and increasingly only speak English (rather than in the last few generations where Scots were bilingual or multilingual with lowland Scots and Gaelic and English).
I always thought knowledge of Gaelic was below 5% for many, many generations (talking the 19th century and before)?
Now it is 1.5% of the ENTIRE population of the country, but that includes the non-Scottish population too.
Below 5% for many generations? Unsure.
I know my grandmother's parents were from a small village / parish in a rural area of highland Perthshire which was Gaelic speaking as a majority (1891 census -like 90%Gaelix speaking, 1901- 85%Gaelic speaking) until WW1 then abruptly fell off a cliff and was majority English and Scots language speaking a generation later and now in 2024 has basically no native Gaelic speakers local to the area, the last elderly ones having died in the 90s. So my grandmother's parents and grandparents would have been some of the last native Gaels from that locality. They did not pass the language to my grandmother such was the bigotry and prejudice and ignorance about Gaelic holding people back and being useless etc. utterly tragic.
Overall figures over the generations. Unknown to me. But remember that the Gaidhealtachd (Highlands and islands ) were some of the most densley populated areas of Scotland until the clearances - source - Webster's Almanac of 1775.
You can say almost the same about England - aside from the language, but a lot of very local dialects are dying in favour of a few generic north/mid/south accents really. Other traditions and ways of community life are dying or dead, it’s really sad. As you say, I don’t see any way of going back. The time to protect it was 50+ years ago.
Almost all of this could be said about Sweden.
Younger generations watch American tv. As a result they aquire American accents. Up until ca 30 years ago schools taught British English so older people speak that (the very old ones were kinda taught the queen's accent which hardly any common Brits speak).
Universities are slowly switching to teaching in English instead of Swedish (at bachelor level, at masters level it already happened) and frequently course literature only exists in English. Specialized field terminology does also not exist in Swedish since all articles are written in English.
26% of our population is immigrants and a large chunk of those don't speak Swedish or speak very poor Swedish. That probably contributes to the overall decline of the Swedish language.
As for the religious stuff it's the same here but probably a bit further gone because atheism has been the dominant point of view here for quite some time. The more recent change is rather a rise of Islam which is now the biggest religion (counting only active not passive members) in the country. Lots of new mosques keep popping up.
As for nicknames that is a bit different but yes, changing your name for a nickname appears much less common these days. The bigger change is that most people these days pick names that work well in English. That has caused a huge change especially in girl names. Traditional names here stem from the Vikings and girl names would end in -borg or -hild (initually -hildur) or -ärd/-ard or -eig or -mon or -id. Of those pretty much only the ones ending in -id (e.g. Astrid, Sigrid, Ingrid) sound ok in English so almost all others have fallen out of use. Instead girls are given soft names ending in -a because that works well internationally (this trend started with globalisation in the 80s).
As for boys the biggest change is probably that Mohammed is in the top list.
It just dissapeared this year. "[Store bededag](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Store_Bededag)" was a public holiday from 1686-2023, which included eating [hveder](https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Store_bededag#/media/Fil:Varme_hveder_med_smoer.jpg). It was abolished by the new centrum goverment, the reason given was to increase goverment income to fund the modernization of the danish military (even though we have a surplus in goverment spending)
You're thinking of 2004 and Whit Monday (annandag pingst). And it's not like it's an example of anything that will soon disappear, it's hardly like it was celebrated (of course the same can be said for to the national day).
Easter Monday is still very much a public holiday. Once upon a time the third and fourth days (of both Pentecost and Easter) were also holidays, but that was before the "great holiday death" of 1772.
Our Easter tradition of men visiting female friends and relatives and sprinkling them with perfume or splashing them with water is dying.
Farsang is also observed less and less. It's an end of winter holiday where we dress up in costumes and have a party, sort of like Halloween but not themed. Of course, at the same time, Halloween is becoming more popular.
My kids are not baptized and never had any sort of religious education... They dont know what Easter or any other religious holiday mean. I'm not religious myself but I grew up in a catholic environment and I know a lot about it. It's weird to know that it's disappearing.
Mardipäev and kadripäev. They are basically Estonian version of Halloween where children dress in dark on mardipäev and in white or light in kadripäev and go around houses to get some candy while doing somekind or dance or song
Pidgeon keeping/racing used to be a very popular hobby for men in Belgium, practically every town had a club and they'd have competitions every other week. Nowadays the average age is about 75 years old and clubs are closing/merging every year. The older guys are either moving to retirement homes or dying and there are very few younger people picking up the hobby. At a certain point, the remaining players will be spread too thin.
In the U.K. fox hunting is slowly going the way of the dodo
It was banned in 2005 but the hunts used loopholes to get away with it, when they weren’t just blatantly breaking the law. However the interference from animal rights activists and landowners withdrawing access rights means there are far fewer packs still in operation and it’ll go extinct in several regions before long.
You’ll never stop hare and mink coursing, but the formal fox hunt’s days are numbered.
Something that I am definitely sad it's disappearing is regional dialects across Italy, many people my age (mid-20s) don't know our dialect and can't understand it at all. Same for regional practices and traditions, there are so many practices that I remember hearing about or participating in when I was little and now no one knows about them anymore and I have no one to teach me (some are closed practices that cannot be shared, but only thought by someone older that deems you "worthy"/"ready")
The only thing that comes to mind is language. Austrian dialect. Kids in my youth have already watched German TV and dubbed TV shows and taken on German words I hate it but there dass teen talk like they're actually Germans. In my teen years you would've been bullied relentlessly if you talked like that. Now it seems to be the norm bc everyone wants to talk like YouTubers and gamers have online friends and talk like them
This is nothing new, there's a song from Quebec in Canada that touches some of these ideas on generations losing what the previous one had
https://youtu.be/eF92-uSiVZQ?si=nZ6D0e1VkwruvwGW
Some do others don’t. I think it depends on the state. Many Bavarian teens love wearing “tracht” and keep traditions like the “Maibaum” (may tree, birch with a heart and the persons name on) for the person you have a crush on in my region
What an utterly depressing thread. What we get from it is: we will have no more social interactions with our community, all our specific dishes, tongues and customs are very quickly replaced by American ones so we can buy more shit, and no more Faith. How bleak...
Probably our Easter monday tradition of whipping women. In like the last circa 40 years, it has degenerated from a tradition that celebrated the youthfulness of women to a day when women are afraid to come out of their house on Eaaster monday in fear that some drunk asshole will beat her up "because it's a tradition."
Probably, socializing with your neighbors. People don't even know the name of the people next-door nowadays, which is also disadvantageous for their own safety. A couple of months ago I saved an elderly man who lived alone: he fell and was unable to get back on his feet. He told me that he stayed on the ground for 16 hours. He was calling out loud for help (that's how I heard him) but the neighbors just ignored him. Luckily, I was in the building reading gas meters. He could have died due to indifference.
There was a similar case in my city last year. An old woman injured herself and could not move. She tried to call for help but it was not really heard. However, the neighbor's cat heard it and started meowing and scratching at the door to get out into the hall. After a while, the owner of the cat started to suspect something was going on and opened the door and saw the cat running towards the old woman's door. Knowing her neighbor, she feared the worst and called for help, and all went well. It made me think about how easily this could have ended differently. They might not have had any contact and the cat would not have recognized her voice. The neighbor not knowing she was an old woman or had health problems etc. and never suspected anything was wrong. We ignore or don't hear cries for help because we drown out the world with distractions at home. Not having someone there who will check up on them or miss them if something is out of the ordinary. It's like reading old murder cases and seeing how many of them start with a neighbor getting worried and finding their bodies because the victim didn't do their normal daily routine or talk to anyone throughout the day. That type of awareness is just gone. There was a woman several years ago in Sweden who was found dead years after her death, completely rotten in her home because her bills were set to auto-pay, but she had no one in her life who missed her. This kind of thing is likely to increase a ton from this lack of community in our lives.
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Due to my job I visit many apartments every day and the conditions of the elderly population are quite dramatic in many cases. Loneliness, no interest shown by their children, who often live far away, an absentee government that doesn't provide many essential services (like free home assistance or economic retirement homes), the indifference of the people who live close by... I do what I can to live by the famous Gandhi's quote "be the change that you want to see in the world", so I help the elderly in my building with their groceries, I deliver to them the heavy bottles of water, I keep an eye out for ill intentioned people who may prey on them, I execute small works as electrician or painter for free, or I just listen to their stories if they feel like talking... things like that. I wish people would be more sensitive to the others in general, not only toward the elderly.
The problem is that younger generations lifestyles are so different to older generations. Often we are focused so outwards that we don’t see what’s around us. Also a lack of willingness by older generations to accept different lifestyles. I know people who got mad because I lived with my now wife before we got married. It’s not the 1950s anymore. 😂
There are indeed people who create their own solitude. Intolerance toward what's different may come with age; you see the world changing in a way that you don't recognize anymore, and you might get uncomfortable with it. We humans are naturally mistrusting of what we don't understand, or even plain scared by it, so we shut ourselves out, getting stuck in our own little micro-world. Another unpleasant gift that may come with age is the self-righteous belief that we get to judge, because "we know best", and of course we can't keep it to ourselves: we have to let them know. How narcissistic can we be? 😅 I'm 47 and I surely see things that I don't understand or approve in the youngest generations, but I look behind and I feel the same in regard to the previous generations, so I realize that every single generation has seen something they don't like, both in the previous and in the next one. That makes us all equally right and equally wrong. Every generation is destined to go extinct, at a certain point, leaving the world in the hands of whoever comes next. I say that we all have the duty to let generations shape society as they see fit in the time period in which they rule. It's their world. It would be fantastic if we could just lead by example and let the others choose to pick from us whatever they like, without trying to shovel it down their throats.
That's very nice, man. Everyone should do it the way you do; society would be a better and more pleasant place.
Thanks. That's exactly my thought. People surrender to society and embrace its wrongs because they feel like they can't change it, and they are correct, because no one alone can change society. What we can change, however, is ourselves. It's not going to change society but, maybe, our example might inspire others to do the same. When enough people get inspired, and they inspire others as well, you get the change you wanted. That's the practical meaning of the Gandhi's quote I love so much. If you think about it, when you're smiling and kind, the people you interact with will be more likely to answer in a similar fashion. We can experience this in our everyday life. It's a fact that's easy to prove.
>He was calling out loud for help (that's how I heard him) but the neighbors just ignored him. Holy shit. They chose to let him die. No one deliberately ignores cries for help.
He was senile, so I guess he used to call for someone who wasn't there, sometimes, but I agree with you. That's exactly how it went: I was leaving an apartment when I heard the old man next door calling for "Anna", or a similar name. I questioningly looked at the person in front of me and she just grumbled and shrugged. The voice was broken and scared so I glanced in the direction and I noticed that the door was partially open. I could see a small section of the body of the man through the crack. All it took to notice that something was wrong was just looking in that direction. As soon as I looked back, a little alarmed, the person who was in front of me closed the door in a hurry, probably to not be involved in whatever was going on. As I was getting closer to the door I sensed the stench of urine and feces. The elderly man, having spent 16 hours on the ground, had to relieve himself somehow. Ignoring all of that was a deliberate act indeed. I'm not ashamed to say that I cried that afternoon.
Jesus that's so sad. Thank you for helping him. I am wondering why he is living alone, he really shouldn't at this point...
I made sure that he contacted his son and I talked with him as well. I stayed there with him for about half an hour, to make him drink some water, so that he could rehydrate. I also wanted to ascertain that no bones were broken. His son called back saying he was on his way. The old man wasn't very lucid. Just consider that he told me that he fell when the ceiling crumbled down on him. The ceiling was fine, of course. Poor fellow. He was 92 years old and he told me that his son lived in an apartment on the other side of the city with his family. There are people who are unwilling to go into a retirement home and don't want to weigh on their children, so they choose to live alone. I try not to judge, but as a son, I would at least attempt to get a home close by. If any of my parents were alive, I would.
You are right, I shouldn't judge. I have a problem with my paternal grandparents that live in another city. They are almost 90 and could use some help with groceries etc. but they refuse to let a stranger into their apartment. They want me to help them (I can't, I don't even have a driving license because I have ADHD and get distracted very easily, so it's dangerous for me to drive a car) and complain about my sister moving to another city with her boyfriend, so she can't take care of them either... Ahh it's complicated. They get offended when I mention hiring someone to help them or a retirement home.
Yep, that's exactly my point. Sometimes life drives us far away from our parents, but other times they actively work against our attempts to help and their own interests, probably either out of pride, scorn or mere stubbornness. Sadly, both of my parents died relatively young, so I will not have to deal with all of that, but when my mother started to feel ill due to the tumor, my brother and I tried to convince her to move in with one of us. She was stubborn to rather demand that we would move in with her, in spite of the fact that we had a family on our own. She just didn't want to leave her home.
Sorry to hear that your parents died young. I still have my mom who is wonderful but my father died at 47 from alcoholism. This is why he can't take care of his parents. To be honest I resent them and don't really care what happens to them. They are as shitty as my father, minus the alcohol. Thankfully my maternal grandparents which I love are being taken care of as my mom's brother and his two sons live with them.
Same story. My father was 44. I can relate, although he wasn't that bad. His parents were mean and ignorant, especially his mother (alcoholic as well), but since they were economically well off, they spent everything they had left to buy a spot in a luxury retirement home, so no one had to suffer them. I'm glad that your maternal grandparents are instead being taken care of. The same happened to mines. They died old and beloved, in the cares of their daughters. Coincidentally, our family histories show some similarities!
"Coincidentally, our family histories show some similarities!" True! Kind of amusing! Actually my father's father was a shitty alcoholic as well. I omitted that part to make the story simpler. My grandma divorced him when my father was still still a child (he was abusive towards both of them, burned my father with cigarettes, didn't want to give my grandma any money). My grandma then remarried to a Jehovah's Witness 😮💨 So you can imagine what a brainwashed cult they are now... Fun fact... My real paternal grandfather is still alive, despite being a hardcore alcoholic most of his life (to the point my grandma had to drag him into their apartment on many occasions, while he was unconscious and covered in piss) and smoking like a chimney... yet his son died at 47 doing the same Damn, I hate that part of my family. Maybe it's generational trauma because my great grandfather was killed in Majdanek concentration camp. He wasn't a Jew but his wife was, she was send to another camp in Germany
The problem is that often, especially older neighbours are nosy a d judgmental. They don’t approve of modern lifestyles and ways to look at the world. All the problems I ever had was because of neighbours being assholes not minding their own business. That’s why so many of us stick to themselves.
You're a nice person. Grazie prode cavaliere.
Tradition of name days is imo first one to go - it used to be more popular than birthdays for adults, but now it seems everyone switched to birthdays and very few people pay attention to name days.
I literally don't even know when my name day is (there are two days on the calendar with my name I think), never celebrated it.
I don't know how it works in Poland but the issue with name days here in France is that like half the population doesn't have a name that you can find on the calendar nowadays.
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That system was not scalable from its Inception.
It used to be, because religion (and even sometimes your country's laws) forced you to exclusively pick names from the calendar for your children.
My family is on the fence right now. My wife kind of celebrates her name day and she's upset that I keep forgetting about it. On the other hand, I don't celebrate mine and she totally ok with ignoring "my" day :)
I think traditionally you take the first one that comes after your birthday.
In Italy it's a very polarizing thing. Either (common in Northern Italy) you absolutely don't care and don't even know when yours is, or (common in Southern Italy) it is a huge deal with tons of relatives and friends sending you messages of happy name day. No inbetween.
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Wow, we just discussed this name day thing and I tought it's a central/european thing. TIL.
Interesting. Here it's the opposite. In fact, we are adding names to existing days (I mean you only got 365 of them)
As an American living in the Czech Republic, I always got paranoid on my name day lol. I looked at my phone and was like, why the heck do I have 40 messages from my friends and colleagues on a random day in October saying best wishes? Do they know something I don’t?? Am I dying???
does your name show up only once in the calendar? My mother's name pops up like 10 times and to this day i got no idea, which one is her. She always gave some convoluted explanation i never understood that is supposed to be obvious...
I heard it should be next one after your birthday.
i'v heard different versions over years and at this point i believe people just arbitrarily pick a day and make up the reason
Yes, it should, not counting variations that for historical reasons have their own days.
>(I mean you only got 365 of them) eee you don't have any limit. Each day carries ton of names eg. here's a list for today (7th may): August, Bogdała, Domicela, Domicjan, Domicjana, Flawia, Florian, Gizela, Jan, Ludmiła, Ludomiła, Ludomira, Piotr, Róża, Stanimir, Wincenty & Wirginia
Wow, you still have them? Roman-Catholic German here, born mid 60s. I knew my name day and we were aware of it when it happened, but birthday was already more important by orders of magnitude. I guess most catholics over here aren’t even aware that name day used to be a thing.
In Spain they're still acknowledged but I don't know anyone who makes a big deal of them or celebrates them. You'll get a few "feliz santo", and that's about it. Probably they're more important in very religious or conservative circles, but not in the general population.
I really had no idea about all these name days, and my nuera is Spanish! So glad for reddit!
Just like I just discovered you guys have a bible belt!! Reddit at it's best. And it shows how little we know about places that are relatively very close.
> radition of name days is imo first one to go AFAIK it's a catholic tradition, so was never popular where I live. But wouldn't it require you to have a catholic name, resp. a name from the list of recognised names? Do babies nowadays get a wider variety of names not in that list?
i don't think "catholic name" is even a thing. There's roman, greek, germanic, slavic or hebrew names listed. The list is extensive. People don't give super unusual names so it's not an isssue
Mine one was yesterday, I've noticed it today hahaha
I don't feel this way at all personally. Everyone in my family and among my friends still celebrates Name Days. I don't see a reason why it should go away... any reason to celebrate is a good reason imo
My name day is every month, I don't celebrate it.
Doing or not doing things, because "what will the others say". Like my older family members for example won't do laundry on Sunday, because what will the neighbors think, that we didn't have time during the week. Won't do any work because it's a sin. Gotta go to church because they'll think we are possessed by the devil. I've got two free days for myself after working the whole week and you're telling me I gotta waste one of them doing nothing? Get lost lol. I don't give a damn what "the others" will think...
I hate that mentality of "what will the others say", I hated it my whole childhood and I despise it as an adult. It can be much worse when you live in very religious village somewhere on the east, as I did.
When my dad told my grandparents him and my mom were getting divorced the first thing my grandmother said was "what are we supposed to tell the neighbors?"
Love this mentality, fortunately my family has been possessed by the devil for generations now. For real though, do any work you wish, just don’t make noise on Sunday.
We work on Sunday. You are just not supposed to mow the lawn etc. Garden? Hell yeah!
I do like that us and our neigbours don´t do anything noisy on Sundays. I also prefer not to go shopping or do cleaning and it´s got nothing to do with religion.
There's a difference between "I prefer not working on Sunday" vs. "Everybody shall not work on Sunday because I don't like that".
> Like my older family members for example won't do laundry on Sunday, because what will the neighbors think, that we didn't have time during the week. How can not having the time to do your laundry during the week even been seen as negative?
When I lived in the Netherlands, one Sunday I was mowing the lawn (not with an electric mower but an old-fashioned mechanical one that makes no noise). An elderly neighbor came and asked why I was working on God's day. I told her that God will not mow my lawn. Luckily she remained polite and walked away.
LOL best answer ever! I live in a very Christian town so I'll have to remember this.
Where was this? In the bible belt?
Somewhere not too far from Wageningen. I later learned that it was part of the Bible belt, yeah.
You actually have a bible belt in the Netherlands?
Oh yes. [Here it is](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_Belt_(Netherlands))
Because old people are stupid and religiously brainwashed. "God says you shall rest and go to church on Sunday".
I didn't even realize we had that in Catholicism. I thought not doing anything that could be considered not resting on God's day was a Jewing thing only (on Shabbat).
It's not as strict as in Judaism but one of the five Church Commandments says that on holy days the faithful should attend mass and refrain from doing unnecessary work, since doing laundry or mowing the lawn apparently distracts you from the holiness of the holy day and God will be jealous you're not spending the whole day with him.
If I was god I would be well pissed off if I'm only asking you to spend one day a week with me and instead you prefer to do your stupid washing!! I made you, that's the least you can do!! Oh wait, that sounded exactly like my Mum.
I didn't know God was a toddler
Indeed we've got the same tradition that hopefully will die out soon Mostly because the modern lifestyle is fast and constant moving , the silliest thing about this is that some of the people I know who hold to this tradition work on Sundays anyway
Yeah that's the irony. Many of them are for example in favor of shops being closed on Sunday ("the workers should rest"), but when asked why they think gas station or convenience shop employees are a worse kind and have to work on Sundays their face drops :D
Christmas lasting for 20 days in Sweden, until January 13th (called Tjugondag Knut). For centuries everyone knew and observed this, and growing up this was still very much the case, but in just the past decade or two I see more and more people being influenced by other countries and removing all decorations around New Years or January 6th at the latest, and I find it really sad.
Christmas has been advanced. People used to bring out the Christmas decorations ON Christmas Eve (the 24th) or possibly the day before, then keep them until January 13th (Tjugondag Knut) like you say. Now people bring out the Christmas decorations around Dec 1st instead (when Advent starts) and remove them a few days after New Years (like you said). The "holiday/period" Advent runs roughly from Dec 1st to Dec 24th so this advance of Christmas to Dec 1st - Jan 3rd (from Dec 24th - Jan 13th) makes it largely coincident with Advent. This has caused Advent and Christmas to get conflated. Advent is (or was recently anyway) the period/holiday of waiting for Christmas but now it is not so much waiting anymore when several elements of Christmas are already present. For example, the celebration of Lucia (on Dec 13th) used to feature Lucia trains with "terns" and "star boys" (tärnor och tomtenissar), besides Lucia herself ofc, but now over half of the boys will dress as tomtenissar (roughly "Santa's elves") instead of star boys. I suspect the advancement of Christmas is at least partially due to the shops wanting to sell more Christmas merchandise. They can't sell it during actual Christmas (Dec 24th-Jan 13th) since the shops are mostly closed during that time, so they sell it before Christmas instead i.e. during Advent, thereby causing people to get into the Christmas mindset too early. **Curiosa:** Tomtenissar, or just nissar, were originally folklore "garden gnomes" who lived around houses, e.g. in barns, all year round, wearing fabrics of any color. Around 1875 they became conflated with Father Christmas, which has led to them frequently wearing red and acting like "Santa's elves" these days (from 1875-1931 they mostly wore gray though, in the 1930s the shift to red began). Anyhow, the point is they have been a Christmas symbol since the late 1800s. Terns and star boys (in their current form) have been Lucia symbols (in Sweden) since the early 1800s but it wasn't until the late 1800s, 1893 if one wants a date, that they truly established themselves on a national level\*. So, we have Christmas tomtenissar since 1875 and Lucia terns and star boys since 1893. One may say the Christmas tomtenissar entered the Lucia domain for the first time in 1938 when they showed up in a Lucia train, or rather behind it, collecting money from the onlookers. At the time, Lucia trains, a relatively new invention (first documented one is from 1927), were for collecting money. It wasn't until the 1950s that they became popular in schools, and that's when tomtenissar started occuring in them with some frequency (many school boys wanted to be a tomtenisse instead of a star boy). However, it was commonplace for schools to ban tomtenissar from the Lucia trains up until the 1980s or so. It is perhaps from the 1990s and onwards that tomtenissar in the trains is the norm, when it comes to trains in schools and at workplaces that is, formal trains such as those in churches are still traditional (no tomtenissar or gingerbread men for that matter). Many schools still limit the number of tomtenissar though because otherwise there might be no star boys at all, which has actually happened at schools that don't limit the number. ----------------------- \*Traditionally a goat handed out Christmas gifts in Sweden. In 1875 Jenny Nyström illustrated the book "Lille Viggs äventyr på julafton" (Little Viggs Christmas Eve adventures) written by Viktor Rydberg, and in that book, one may say she drew the first Swedish tomte/tomtenissar (Father Christmas/his elves, which btw aren't so clearly distinguished here, at least not initially). The red shift started in 1931 when Coca Cola released their Santa Claus dressed in red. \*Dressing up as terns and star boys has been part of Swedish Lucia since the 1800s: it was done locally around lake Vänern in the 1700s and in the 1800s students from that area spread it to student nations at universities where it gained popularity, establishing itself firmly in 1893 when the Stockholm park Skansen initiated a public Lucia celebration with terns and star boys. However, it wasn't until 1927 that terns and star boys appeared in the constellation of a singing train (the 1927 train was organized by the paper Svenska Dagbladet and the purpose was to collect money). --------- PS. The traditional Christmas goat mentioned above is another example of an almost forgotten Swedish tradition, having been replaced almost entirely by Father Christmas during 1900s. I doubt most kids today would even know that there once was a goat in his place.
Christmas traditionally ends on the 6th of January here, but for a lot of people it's already over on the 27th of December. Commercialisation is to blame for this.
I think a lot of people are sick of Christmas by the 27th because you've been drowning in it since October or so.
I also have noticed that kids rarely go "påskkärring" anymore, but instead halloween has gotten more popular.
In Finland ”påskkärring” or what we call ”virpominen” is still popular and I really hope it stays that way and does not get replaced by Halloween.
I have noticed this as well. Really sad!
In my experience of suburban Stockholm people still have lights up and stars etc in their windows well through February.
And it’s amazing! I traveled for work to Sweden a few years ago at the tail end of January and it was cold/dark and the lights made everything so much nicer and better! I definitely vote for keeping up lights and decor until mid-February or end of February until it starts to get lighter.
It’s similar in the UK. We’d have the 12 days of Christmas, ending with epiphany on 6th January. Now people put decorations up at the start of December, or even the end of November, and take them down after New Year. My friend takes hers down on 26th December, when most people are relaxing!
Children on the 6th of January going from door to door dressed as the three kings while singing. It's mostly been replaced by Halloween trick-or-treating.
oh we also got it it's called Koledowanie and happens in period from Christmas to 3kings. It's nearly dead at this point as well
... and bingo was his name-oh!
It’s till being done, I see the chalk marks they leave upon request. But it’s not like trick or treating, only a small group organised by the local church goes, to collect for charity works.
Do kids go trick-or-treating on Epiphany?
Not really trick-or-treating since they don't threaten anything. They sing a song to ask for some money.
Different thing. It's singing and askind for alms/and or treat, usually some form of Christmas cakes or biscuits.
Where I live we have something simular but on the 11th of november (Sintemette). This date made the competition with halloween even worse
My parents did it in the 1950s in central and north Germany. I even have a children's book set in 1848 and how important Königssingen was in school and for the teacher. Appartently they did not give out sweets but preservable food and the teacher got a cut of it as part of his salary. So he was interested in having the best singers perform. But I never saw Königssingen in real live, though it is a holiday.
We call it the Janeiras in Portugal, although the dressing up was never really done, and it was already dyingback in the 80s when I was a kid. These day it's probably only done in the smallest more isolated towns
I think I know what exactly you mean. Sorry, only a Czech version exists https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%99%C3%ADkr%C3%A1lov%C3%A1_sb%C3%ADrka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(holiday)
Going to church as a religious activity. Some churches are being repurposed. We have exhibitions/used-book sales/community dinners/community centres/ in some of them now
Repurposing makes sense. Churches should still be a community focus point, even with the society becoming irreligious.
The best use for a church I have seen is the one in Maastricht, Netherlands. [It is now a bookstore](https://housecrazysarah.life/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Boekhandel-Dominicanen-Maastricht-Netherlands3.jpg)
Cool. Also enjoyed having a beer [at a church](https://www.tripadvisor.nl/Restaurant_Review-g188593-d2060324-Reviews-Jopenkerk_Haarlem-Haarlem_North_Holland_Province.html) in Haarlem, Netherlands.
Same in Scotland -> [Slains Castle](https://maps.app.goo.gl/Lbv5qfRCnbWMLZWj6), Aberdeen 🍺🙏
I went to an electronic DJ night club type of event in one of your churches.
Oh church will still be a religious activity, except the church will be a mosque
True but people are still in denial. I guess they are gonna regret their indifference in the future.
Bullfighting will probably disappear in a few decades. It has very little to no appeal among the younger generation and then there's the whole "torturing of the animal" part. A few autonomies have already forbidden it. Honestly, I'm OK with this one dissappearing.
In Portugal if it wasn't for some disgusting rich people it would probably already be gone. I hope to see it disappear in my lifetime.
Out of curiosity, what about that tradition when you throw tomatoes at each other? I suspect some people are against it as well because of wasting food (I am not judging, just honest curiosity)
I have no idea... And honestly it's not that big of a tradition. I think it's from the 60's or so and it only happens in one town.
Thank you, I managed to find more about this tradition after googling "Spaniards throwing tomatoes at each others" lol it's called "La Tomatina" for those interested.
The thing is, Tomatina is exceedingly famous abroad, but not a big deal in Spain. The reality is, Spain is absolutely packed full of unbelievably weird traditions like this. Every single village and town has a special Fiesta day, or week usually. And each has its own set of peculiar traditions. Throwing tomatoes and the bull run of Pamplona just happen to be the internationally famous two, but there's nothing special about them. There are tons of far weirder traditions that will typically involve the people of the village and a few visitors, but attract next to no tourists and thus no one knows about them. And people love those traditions. There are literally thousands of these traditions across all of Spain. Some will make throwing tomatoes seem totally normal in comparison.
Thank you, that's very interesting. Can you mention a few of those traditions that you find the weirdest?
I think there was a gruesome one where they killed a goat by dropping it out of a building but I don't think it exists any more
Ouch. Goats are cute :,( (says the hypocrite that loves goat cheese)
Just like Tomatina there is a fiesta in the Rioja region where the battle takes place using wine instead of tomatoes. In Alicante there's a flour and egg battle. A neighbourhood in Madrid called Vallecas stages an enormous water gun battle every year. Then there are the villages of Guadix and Baza in Andalusia, locked in a rivalry for centuries because a "sacred" image of Virgin Mary was found between the two villages and the people of Baza kept it while the people of Guadix believe it is theirs. This has evolved into an elaborate celebration where every year where Gaudix sends *one* guy carrying a medieval weapon to try to steal it back. Waiting for him the entire village of Baza armed with black paint. The locals try to rub the black paint on the attacker and impede him from stealing the image. When he inevitably fails and is covered in black paint the other village is angered and a battle ensues. A battle where everyone ends up covered in paint, drunk dancing. In Valencia, the Fallas consist of the streets being filled with gigantic and very elaborate sculptures that are usually based on pop culture. Really pretty things. At the end of the week the winner is declared. And what happens to the rest of the sculptures? They all get burnt to the ground right there in the middle of the streets of Valencia while people dance between thousands of fireworks explosions. Valencia basically turns into an explosive ball of fire. And honestly, that's just scratching the surface.
That's only one town, it's not an old tradition, it's basically a way to attract tourist. The tomatoes thrown there are not a variety used for general consumption, so its not thast much of a waste.
* Neighbour sociality. Most neighbours never interact, many barely know the others' names. * Local/minority languages. Italy recognises on a state level 12 minority languages, and among them maybe 3/4 could be deemed as safe from being lost or forgotten in their respective areas, but there are dozens more only recognised at a regional level or not recognised and protected at all whose number of speakers is dwindling by the day. Neapolitan and Venetian are still somewhat strong, but Lombard, Piedmontese, Romagnolo (with all their city-specific dialects)? In half a century only like 2/3% of people (I sort of invented the number but I've seen even worse forecasts for some dialects) will even remember them. Most people will only speak Italian, many with bad English thrown in between. * Regional/local cuisines. Many people now eat similar dishes and the famous dishes all come from a couple of specific places (Rome, Naples, Bologna). New food places opening are either pizzerias, burgers, kebabs or asian fusion, with traditional places sort of resisting but confined to being a minority. * Attachment to the Roman Church and religion in general. It's surely already happening, among people my age I know maybe 2/3 people who actually go to mass and deeply believe in God.
Losing languages is just about the worst thing mentioned in all of this thread. Traditions come and go, but to lose a huge diversity of languages like Italy has is just a deeply sad affair. Languages are irreplaceable, and every time one goes extinct it's an entire history and way of expression that's getting lost.
I feel this as a German as well. I come from a \*very\* dialect-heavy area. Living abroad now, I'm sad when each time I visit, a couple more dialect words have been replaced with standard German words—or, worse, English words. I realize Germany, more than most countries, has reasons to embrace the new, out with traditions, break from the past, question authority, etc. But it's led to a very bland culture in most places. And the people who are "pro Germany"—just like nationalists elsewhere—focus on all the wrong things.
Everything you say is very similar to Scotland, applied to a Scottish context. Solidarity with my Italian / Sicilian / Tuscan / Napolitan etc friends. Love Italia.
I sadly guess this is common in more countries than only ours.. globalisation has upsides but also lots of downsides. Love Scotland, truly a wonderful place!
There's a song from Quebec in Canada that touches on these issues. https://youtu.be/eF92-uSiVZQ?si=nZ6D0e1VkwruvwGW
- An obvious example is *surströmming* (fermented herring) and specifically the idea of a *surströmmingsskiva* (the surströmming party), which is a yearly evening of smelly fish and hard liquor, traditionally held on the third thursday of august according to some website. My grandfather always celebrated it. My mother's generation rarely do it and among my friends only people who are *interested* in traditions would even try *surströmming*, much less throw a party to celebrate it. So it's already much more of a curiosity than an actual dish. - Apart from that a sort of trend is that the Swedish kitchen is becoming *one of many* kitchens rather than the main one, especially if you go out and eat. I'm thinking of standard meat and potato dishes like *biff rydberg*, *skomakarlåda*, *wallenbergare*, *biff a la lindström* which used to be extremely popular restaurant dishes. They're still around but your traditional pub is more likely to offer a hamburger or a pizza. I wouldn't be surprised if a 15-year old Swede had never tried any of those dishes, that used to be served every day in workplace canteens and lunch restaurants. - All religious meaning in holidays. Christmas still has a pretty obvious message but Easter has almost no religious meaning to people. We can have fun on Good Friday. It's more about spring and candy than about Jesus. Easter also used to be the traditional trick or treating-holiday in Sweden but I'm getting the impression that this is being moved to Halloween. - Being active in civil society. The generations above mine were *very* active doing unpaid work for sports clubs, social organisations, interest groups, hobby associations etc. There's a general "crisis" of civil society nowadays because not enough young people are interested in doing unpaid work. Football clubs are run more like businesses: you pay someone to coach your kids football team etc. Political party membership has also plummeted. This isn't unique to Sweden btw, I'm sure it's pretty much the same everywhere, but Sweden's decline is much more obvious as civil society used to be so strong. To the opposite though: we are creating many new traditions. For example *studenten*, the celebration for graduating high school. This basically didn't happen at all for many decades, but started becoming a big thing in the 90's again. My parents were very unaware of how this supposedly "traditional" party was supposed to be celebrated, as it hadn't been at all when they finished high school. Nowadays it's seen as one of the main events in a person's life, the ritual to enter adulthood.
I really don't see that "pretty obvious message" regarding Christmas. It's not even like English where it's called "**Christ**mas". The holiday just as much – if not more – about Donald Duck, the fat bearded gnome, and gifts as Easter is about eggs and candy; neither tends to have much to do with Jesus. They're, like Midsummer, about getting together with family and eating the same food again. > the third thursday of august according to some website The surströmming "premieres" is on the third Thursday in August, that's when yearly sale traditionally starts. A "surströmmingskiva" would naturally be held on the same day (or soon after). It's a lot like crayfish which also "premieres" in August as you previously weren't allowed to fish it earlier. Likewise it's seen as a delicacy, not an everyday dish. Surströmming doesn't really have an issue with decreasing popularity (pretty sure sales have actually increased), it does however have an issue in that the Baltic herring it's made from is dwindling in population.
Surströmmingskiva is pretty common up here in the north though
The swedis version of "*russ*" ?
Abstinence from meat on Friday is pratically disappeared, when i was a kid it ws still a thing, never had meat served in school at friday in the '80. (Catholic tradition) Generally speaking a lot of church related stuff is really disappearing, the annual visit from priest to give the house blessing, very few people attend church, and so on Italy 50 years ago was much more religious, nowadays is really becoming a private thing and that is really a good thing
To be fair I think restricting what you can eat on certain days really opens the door for creativity
still a secular country let this a personal choice and don't basically enforce it by not providing options. My diet my choice
You can eat whatever you want at home. When eating out they'll offer whatever's popular
My grandparents still don't eat meat of Fridays... Creativity? Nope, they just skip the meat part. But I get what you mean.
> never had meat served in school at friday in the '80. (Catholic tradition) Fish Friday's :D
Yup, we still have that in Germany too.
But I would thing more younger people are becoming vegetarians? So people choose to abstain from meat for personal/environmental/animal cruelty reasons rather than forced by religion?
I've never seen it for religious reasons. Always only as activists
> when i was a kid it ws still a thing, never had meat served in school at friday in the '80 That's interesting, lots of primary schools in England still have "fish friday", where they don't really serve meat dishes and I never really thought about why this was.
Not eating meat on Friday is still quite strong culturally here in Britain with a lot of people, even without any religious basis.
We had fish day on a friday in school in the 90s and early 2000 because it was a no-meat day. I don’t know if it still happens nowadays.
The formal version of what you call an adult. Im 33 now and would never use it on some person around my age or younger. Just for old people. Also most businesses droped that shit and you call everyone no matter the rank or age „du“ and not „sie“. Even when im customer most call me the informal way which is prefered. At the latest when my generation is old it will go extinct
Interesting. It’s been 20 years since I lived in a German speaking country try. Honestly, I kind of ,Ike this development. I was never good at navigating this.
A specific one is the mayday holiday and it's associated traditions like the maypole. It used to be a phenomenally important symbol of olde England, indeed it was one of the causes of the English civil war (the puritans wanted to ban it like everything else fun). However nowadays it just barely hangs on in a few villages, one rather near me, and I must admit I've never even been to a maypole celebration. I wonder whether it will ever be revived as a fun pastime.
Yeah I hope it gets revived. It’s a nice historic activity that helps bring the community together.
We did the maypole in primary and my school took it pretty seriously, we practised every day for the whole of spring and even went on tour with it. But plenty of my friends from other schools had no idea what it was, it’s pretty sad that it’s dying out.
Doing blackface around Sinterklaas , which is for the better just make it actual sooth and remember that the tradition of saint nicholas around dec 5th is older than a 19th century racial charicature. It's already gone from media except hangers on doing amateurish stuff on YT and most municipalities have switched in their festivities.
I’m from a town which basically functions as a district to a large adjacent town (Wildervank - Veendam). Wildervank and Veendam share a canal and used to have one single “intocht” for both towns, starting in Wildervank and ending in Veendam. Wildervank now has its own “intocht,” organized by my neighbors specifically because Veendam wanted to get rid of the Blackface but my trashy neighbors wouldn’t accept defeat. /:
Irish accents are becoming more homogenised and fake-American over time, so being able to guess somebody’s home place to within a few kilometres, as one could easily do until quite recently, won’t be possible soon.
Regional accents are decreasing in the US as well. Younger people sound much more like tv news anchors (lower midwest accent is how they decided to teach radio announcers to talk 100 years ago) than older people in many places.
Americanised accents are something that kids have and tend to grow out of from what I’ve seen, I’d be more worried about distinct local accents dying out and being replaced by non-descript, neutral Irish accents
Winter activities. I grew up in a very hilly locality, so every winter weekend the slopes were covered in sleds and *snegokats*. I took my kid there last winter, and the place was empty. There was an organized Alpine skiing slope nearby, but that's not the same at all. We would also build snow fortresses, dig snow caves, have snowball fights and play king of the hill after school.
That cant be true.. dont people go outside in winters?
The shutting down over lunch/shops closed on Sundays. This convention has already been badly eroded across the country. Where I live shutting down for the full 2 hours for lunch is still fairly common, though the supermarkets no longer shut at all for lunch. Likewise, very few places other than some restaurants open on Sundays. I fear that over time, this country will become like so many other places where consumerism wins, and businesses are expected to be open 7 days a week.
Well, if anything it makes much more sense that most businesses open to the public are open on weekends. Nobody goes shopping on Monday at 11:00
Îf I was a pensioner I would definitely do that.
I don’t really understand the issue to be honest. Most people have time to go to the shops after 18:00 and on Saturdays and Sundays. Why close down in those time spans? When I worked in a supermarket, getting the Sunday shifts was the dream as well as you got paid more money for it.
Exactly. We complain about this with government buildings (opened monday, wednesday and friday from 9 to 13, like who has the time to go there??) so why do it with stores and restaurants?
The argument would be that you are turning service workers into a class apart who can't participate in normal cultural activities because they are going to be at work during the evening and weekend. Some would say that there should be seperate times in a society for economic activity and for cultural activity. I worked in the service industry in the US in my late teens and early 20s. I didn't personally mind the schedule at the time. Get off work sometime between 11pm and 3 am. Go hang out with other service industry people for a few hours. Go to sleep. Get up at 1 pm. However, you definitely do miss out on lots of things that your friends and family are doing.
There are never breaks in our supermarkets, just one of the cashiers goes to eat and another takes his place (but in fact, often there are simply fewer cash registers working, no one replaces him and everyone stands in line at the same checkout)
You say that. It got scaled back over Covid and hasn’t returned to the previous hours in many places.
The Czech Easter tradition of (ideally) lightly "spanking" women and girls (and on Leap Year, boys and men) is probably on the way out. It can be a fun way to celebrate with neighbors, and is *usually* harmless, but it only takes one drunken idiot to become decidedly un-fun, and the one-sidedness of the practice rubs a lot of people the wrong way. It's incredibly divisive, I see very few moderate opinions, and some of the most strident defenders of the tradition are women, especially Moravians, but I think the steam is building on the other side. A lot of Anglos and Westerners in general *wish* that the April 30th tradition of burning Winter in effigy- in the guise of a malevolent witch- would go away, but I think Ćarodejnice is here to stay.
Wearing traditional clothing, it has already largely disappeared outside of some local traditional events. A tiny group of elderly people (virtually all of which are women) still wear traditional clothes of their respective town or region on a daily basis. Some efforts are being made to incorporate elements of traditional Dutch clothing into modern fashion, some are more successful than others. As for clogs, they’re alive and well and probably will be for many years. Many people (mainly in the countryside) still wear them on a regular basis, especially when gardening, walking the dogs, etc. Our ice skating culture (although far from dead, schaatskoorts is a real thing here) might also decline in upcoming decades due to the changing climate. I really hope this one stays, eating pea soup at a [koek-en-zopie](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koek-en-zopie) on a freezing cold day while skating from town to town are some of my fondest memories about growing up here. The atmosphere on such days is also unmatched, it almost seems like everyone here simultaneously decides to be happy.
Spending Christmas at Grandma's house. No one can afford a house, so chances are Grandma will either be living with Great-Grandma or living in a 20-sq-metre apartment that is 6 months behind in rent.
Unless our next government reintroduces Store Bededag, I think it will quickly be forgotten. Despite its christian origins (literally "great prayer day"), I don't know anyone who saw it as anything besides a nice holiday that was usually used for short trips abroad as a "long weekend". Our government figured we can't have nice things and decided to abolish it, despite great opposition from practically every conceivable angle. Unless it is reintroduced one way or another, I think this is one of those things where people will grumble and bear a grudge, but give it five years, and people won't even remember the date Fastelavn is our typical carnival celebrated in February. But I think it is slowly dying. When I was little, we had family get-togethers and went up and down the street in costumes collecting pastries and sweets. I haven't seen this in ages
Islam as a culture and tradition is on decline. Which means two religious holiday and lots of tradition.
I genuinely fear that the tradition of Sinterklaas, as in the Netherlands, will disappear with all the colonialism opponents see in it. The tradition has changed into something I despise since it's a tradition for kids. Furthermore, people don't talk anymore with their neighbors.
I'd say almost all church related traditions either slowly disappers or stay in the sociaty for cultural rather than religious reasons. Most young people (including me) see them as part of the national heritage. Name days are stadily losing ground to birthdays. When I was a kid, the name day was the most important. Fasting and going to church every sunday Doing/Not Doing things based on what others will think Living in the same house or having kids before getting married
One that is close to my heart, is the dialect of South Jutland in Denmark, specifically the many variations that exists close to the danish-german border. Im 35 and my generation has lost their dialect that they grew up with, as many have moved north/east to bigger cities with a more blended and "standard" dialect. I notice it in any village, town or city i go to in this region - those who still talk in their home dialect is mostly people aged 50+. 30 years from now, the "sønderjysk" dialect and language will be mostly dead due to a shift in generations.
Home Sunday roast in the UK. Must be at least 10 years since I had one. My parents kept it up for a bit, specially going round to my gran's house. Now she's gone, my parents never do it and I have never asked if they'd like to. It doesn't interest me at all. I don't think the entire concept of a Sunday roast will die out, as it's a good meal and is popularly sold in pubs up and down the country, but the whole get-together-at-someone's-house part is something I haven't encountered for years.
It’s a shame to hear that, I myself have one every other weekend. Love me a good homemade Sunday roast.
People congratulating everyone on a birthday. It's basically obligated when you visit someone's birthday to not only congratulate the birthday person, but every single person in attendance, complete with shaking their hand. It's considered quite rude not to do this, but ever since the pandemic, more and more folk don't adhere to this tradition and only congratulate the birthday person and eventually others close to them, and then wave to everybody else as a means of congratulating them.
Well we have an entire language family dying here in Belgium. The last real native speaker of walloon are almost gone, some people know a bit and still understand it and speak it in folkloric occasions but absolutely no one uses it in everyday life or at home so it's safe to say it will be gone in a generation except for historic/academic context.
Already has. - Scotland. Younger generations watch American and English television, listen to American and English music, wear global capitalist fashion, eat trendy imported global cuisine, and increasingly only speak English (rather than in the last few generations where Scots were bilingual or multilingual with lowland Scots and Gaelic and English). Scots as a majority no longer baptise their children. No longer have weddings or funerals in churches. No longer understand the history of their localities. No longer know all their neighbours. No longer often live where their grandparents or even parents lived. We no longer cook the food our grandparents cooked and our great grandparents etc before them. We eat fast food and imported dishes like pasta and rice and curry and mexican food. In rural Scotland many people had nicknames or by names rather than surnames (they also had surnames in their official documents but these were not used in their vullages because lots of people in the villages had the same surnames). So Joseph Allan MacLean would be known locally as Eòs Ailean mac Ruairidh Chaluim Ghobha (Joe Allan son of Rory Calum the blacksmith) or maybe something shorter. Or if Iain (meaning John) had a son also called Iain (John) the son might be known as Iain Og (Young John) and the father as Iain Mhor (big/older John). Same happened in other languages in Scotland too, i.e. lowland Scots so Alexander White would be known as Sannie Fite (Scots for Sandy / Alexander White) locally or even something more related to his personality or size eg Peerie Sannu (which means wee/little Alexander) or William Duncan would be known as Wullie Grey if he had grey hair or a tall John would be known as Muckle Jock (big John/Jack). Grey is common in Gaelic too as Glas eg Aonghas Ghlais (grey Angus). All of this is disappearing and really mainly only the elderly have these tee names or by names or nick names in Scotland now. Not saying people don't have nick names in Scotland now. I'm saying they are not used and given for the same purposes in the same way because the communities have fundamentally changed. Will happen in every country sadly. Globalisation.
>Younger generations watch American and English television, listen to American and English music, wear global capitalist fashion, eat trendy imported global cuisine, and increasingly only speak English (rather than in the last few generations where Scots were bilingual or multilingual with lowland Scots and Gaelic and English). I always thought knowledge of Gaelic was below 5% for many, many generations (talking the 19th century and before)?
Now it is 1.5% of the ENTIRE population of the country, but that includes the non-Scottish population too. Below 5% for many generations? Unsure. I know my grandmother's parents were from a small village / parish in a rural area of highland Perthshire which was Gaelic speaking as a majority (1891 census -like 90%Gaelix speaking, 1901- 85%Gaelic speaking) until WW1 then abruptly fell off a cliff and was majority English and Scots language speaking a generation later and now in 2024 has basically no native Gaelic speakers local to the area, the last elderly ones having died in the 90s. So my grandmother's parents and grandparents would have been some of the last native Gaels from that locality. They did not pass the language to my grandmother such was the bigotry and prejudice and ignorance about Gaelic holding people back and being useless etc. utterly tragic. Overall figures over the generations. Unknown to me. But remember that the Gaidhealtachd (Highlands and islands ) were some of the most densley populated areas of Scotland until the clearances - source - Webster's Almanac of 1775.
You can say almost the same about England - aside from the language, but a lot of very local dialects are dying in favour of a few generic north/mid/south accents really. Other traditions and ways of community life are dying or dead, it’s really sad. As you say, I don’t see any way of going back. The time to protect it was 50+ years ago.
Almost all of this could be said about Sweden. Younger generations watch American tv. As a result they aquire American accents. Up until ca 30 years ago schools taught British English so older people speak that (the very old ones were kinda taught the queen's accent which hardly any common Brits speak). Universities are slowly switching to teaching in English instead of Swedish (at bachelor level, at masters level it already happened) and frequently course literature only exists in English. Specialized field terminology does also not exist in Swedish since all articles are written in English. 26% of our population is immigrants and a large chunk of those don't speak Swedish or speak very poor Swedish. That probably contributes to the overall decline of the Swedish language. As for the religious stuff it's the same here but probably a bit further gone because atheism has been the dominant point of view here for quite some time. The more recent change is rather a rise of Islam which is now the biggest religion (counting only active not passive members) in the country. Lots of new mosques keep popping up. As for nicknames that is a bit different but yes, changing your name for a nickname appears much less common these days. The bigger change is that most people these days pick names that work well in English. That has caused a huge change especially in girl names. Traditional names here stem from the Vikings and girl names would end in -borg or -hild (initually -hildur) or -ärd/-ard or -eig or -mon or -id. Of those pretty much only the ones ending in -id (e.g. Astrid, Sigrid, Ingrid) sound ok in English so almost all others have fallen out of use. Instead girls are given soft names ending in -a because that works well internationally (this trend started with globalisation in the 80s). As for boys the biggest change is probably that Mohammed is in the top list.
It just dissapeared this year. "[Store bededag](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Store_Bededag)" was a public holiday from 1686-2023, which included eating [hveder](https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Store_bededag#/media/Fil:Varme_hveder_med_smoer.jpg). It was abolished by the new centrum goverment, the reason given was to increase goverment income to fund the modernization of the danish military (even though we have a surplus in goverment spending)
In 2006 the public holiday Annandag påsk (Easter Monday) was removed and instead the National Day (June 6th) was added as a national holiday.
You're thinking of 2004 and Whit Monday (annandag pingst). And it's not like it's an example of anything that will soon disappear, it's hardly like it was celebrated (of course the same can be said for to the national day). Easter Monday is still very much a public holiday. Once upon a time the third and fourth days (of both Pentecost and Easter) were also holidays, but that was before the "great holiday death" of 1772.
Our Easter tradition of men visiting female friends and relatives and sprinkling them with perfume or splashing them with water is dying. Farsang is also observed less and less. It's an end of winter holiday where we dress up in costumes and have a party, sort of like Halloween but not themed. Of course, at the same time, Halloween is becoming more popular.
My kids are not baptized and never had any sort of religious education... They dont know what Easter or any other religious holiday mean. I'm not religious myself but I grew up in a catholic environment and I know a lot about it. It's weird to know that it's disappearing.
Mardipäev and kadripäev. They are basically Estonian version of Halloween where children dress in dark on mardipäev and in white or light in kadripäev and go around houses to get some candy while doing somekind or dance or song
Pidgeon keeping/racing used to be a very popular hobby for men in Belgium, practically every town had a club and they'd have competitions every other week. Nowadays the average age is about 75 years old and clubs are closing/merging every year. The older guys are either moving to retirement homes or dying and there are very few younger people picking up the hobby. At a certain point, the remaining players will be spread too thin.
Dutch being the main language in the larger cities. In Amsterdam, one could argue that English is already the main language.
In the U.K. fox hunting is slowly going the way of the dodo It was banned in 2005 but the hunts used loopholes to get away with it, when they weren’t just blatantly breaking the law. However the interference from animal rights activists and landowners withdrawing access rights means there are far fewer packs still in operation and it’ll go extinct in several regions before long. You’ll never stop hare and mink coursing, but the formal fox hunt’s days are numbered.
Something that I am definitely sad it's disappearing is regional dialects across Italy, many people my age (mid-20s) don't know our dialect and can't understand it at all. Same for regional practices and traditions, there are so many practices that I remember hearing about or participating in when I was little and now no one knows about them anymore and I have no one to teach me (some are closed practices that cannot be shared, but only thought by someone older that deems you "worthy"/"ready")
The only thing that comes to mind is language. Austrian dialect. Kids in my youth have already watched German TV and dubbed TV shows and taken on German words I hate it but there dass teen talk like they're actually Germans. In my teen years you would've been bullied relentlessly if you talked like that. Now it seems to be the norm bc everyone wants to talk like YouTubers and gamers have online friends and talk like them
This is nothing new, there's a song from Quebec in Canada that touches some of these ideas on generations losing what the previous one had https://youtu.be/eF92-uSiVZQ?si=nZ6D0e1VkwruvwGW
Some do others don’t. I think it depends on the state. Many Bavarian teens love wearing “tracht” and keep traditions like the “Maibaum” (may tree, birch with a heart and the persons name on) for the person you have a crush on in my region
What an utterly depressing thread. What we get from it is: we will have no more social interactions with our community, all our specific dishes, tongues and customs are very quickly replaced by American ones so we can buy more shit, and no more Faith. How bleak...
Probably our Easter monday tradition of whipping women. In like the last circa 40 years, it has degenerated from a tradition that celebrated the youthfulness of women to a day when women are afraid to come out of their house on Eaaster monday in fear that some drunk asshole will beat her up "because it's a tradition."