Christmas thrice, for the Jolie-Pitts

by CBB correspondent Sarah Mc.

Maddox, Zahara, and Shiloh Jolie-Pitt aregoing to be celebrating three times this Christmas.Their mom and dad, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, areplanning more that just one Christmas day to enjoy thisyear.  Maddox is from Cambodia, and Zahara is fromEthiopia, so this holiday season will be a mixture ofcelebrations.

Angelina says: "Zahara’s Christmas is January 8. WithMaddox, it is the water festivals in Buddhism… we’regetting into all that with them."

Source: Yahoo News

Comments

PSB on December 20th, 2006

I think it’s great they are trying to expose all of the kids to a bunch of different cultures, but I find it incredibly weird that they each have their own religion!

Especially since neither Brad nor Angie are Buddhist or African tribalist. I respect the effort, but it’s all a bit comical in my opinion to say “Zahara has Christmas on Jan 8th and Maddox celebrates the water festival—but not Shiloh, because she’s American, so her Christmas is Dec 25th”.

I love this family, but COME ON!

They will never be able to keep all of this up if they adopt as many different kids as they say they want to. Yeesh!

Ana on December 20th, 2006

Very well…respecting their kids culture, very well!!!! I love this guys!

SWP on December 20th, 2006

PSB I think you might be taking her comments too literally. I interpret it as the FAMILY will celebrate each of those 3 holidays together, acknowledging the cultural and/or religious practice of Christmas of each Mad’s and Z’s birthplace. You make it sound as if Mad and only Mad will have the Buddhist holiday, Z and only Z will celebrate the Jan. 8 Christmas, while they both look on while Shiloh opens HER presents on Dec. 25.

I really admire what they’ve done and what they hope to do with their children. Mad and Z each come from cultures with wonderful traditions and celebrations and their parents are making an effort to make sure they learn about and experience them. It’s also great that Shiloh has the chance to experience those with her siblings as well. I applaud Brad and Angelina. More of us need to learn about and appreciate the beauty in cultures other than our own.

Autumn on December 21st, 2006

I guess they want their kids to learn about all of the customs of their home countries, which is okay to a point.

I was recently talking to someone who is of hispanic origin and they were talking about how in their home country they’d celebrate Christmas after the first of January as a 3 Kings Day, or something like that. So maybe the 8th of January date as quoted by Angelina as “Zahara’s Christmas” is something more along the lines of that? (It could be more of a ’3 Kings Day Celebration’ (which would be more Catholic based, I think) rather than totally tribal, but who knows?)

Anyway I guess if they want to gift and/or celebrate with their kids three times, it’s up to them.

Jan on December 21st, 2006

It probably does have something to do with Epiphany (3 kings day). Most of Ethiopia is actually Christian, and most Christian churches recognize Epiphany, the day the wise men reached Jesus, as being set on January 6. However, many churches, Catholic and Protestant, celebrate Jesus’ baptism then as well. The Eastern Church (which is the most prevelant in Ethiopia) believes the correct date to be between January 6 and 10. But these churches would celebrate Christmas as well, so I don’t know why Zahara’s CHRISTMAS is January 8, her EPIPHANY would be January 8. It would be interesting to learn.