The purpose of this paper is to define what christmas is, explain how it is celebrated in some parts of mexico, and describe some typical christmas foods associated with it. Studying the definition of the word christmas can help us understand the background behind this holiday. supporting sentences

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Other non religious activities are also held during that season including parades and pi atas. In addition to christmas activities, many food dishes are served during this period. supporting sentences

perhaps the most popular of all christmas foods in mexico are tamales.

Available: general definition of culture culture is a total way of life shared by a people in a society. It is a synergistic totality and each culture is unique, although it may have things in common with other cultures. Culture contains customs, traditions, beliefs, norms, roles, skills, knowledge of the natural and social world, and values. Culture constrains not only behavior but also how people think about and interpret their world. An outline of culture: the knowledge that people share from instructor's manual for eitzen/baca zinn's on conflict and order. As individuals interact they exchange ideas that develop into common beliefs and common ways of doing things.

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Humans are symbol making creatures capable of attaching meaning to particular objects and actions and communicating those meanings. Culture is acquired through socialization, which is the process of learning culture. Culture is essential to the maintenance of any social system because it provides two critical functions predictability of action and stability.

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To provide predictability and stability, culture must constrain individuals by restricting their freedom. Through cultural patterns, the individual is expected to conform to the expectations of the group culture is not freedom but rather constraint. Culture operates not only outside humans but also inside them through internalization, which is the process of society’s demands becoming part of the individual and acting to control his or her behavior. Internalization happens in 3 ways: 1 culture becomes part of the human makeup through the social organization’s belief system. 2 culture is internalized through members’ psychological identification with the group to which people belong or reference groups, which is a group to which they want to belong. 3 culture is internalized by providing the individual with an identity, which is socially bestowed, socially sustained, and socially transformed e. The paradox of culture, as peter berger points out, is that while society is like a prison to the people trapped in its cultural demands and expectations, it is not perceived as limiting to individual freedom.

Culture maintains boundaries by: 1 limiting the range of acceptable behavior and attitudes. 2 instilling a sense of naturalness about the alternatives peculiar to a given society. 3 establishing a universal tendency for people to think other societies are wrong, inefficient, or immoral, and to think of one’s own group as superior as the only right way, which is called ethnocentrism. Each form carries a socially constructed meaning for instance, the v for victory sign when it exposes the back of the hand to the viewer is the equivalent in australia of flashing the middle finger in the u.s.

Technology refers to the information, techniques, and tools used by people to satisfy their needs and desires. Social technology is the knowledge that enables individuals to establish, maintain, and operate the technical aspects of a social organization. Ideologies are shared beliefs about the physical, social and metaphysical worlds. Ethnomethodology is the scientific study of the commonplace activities of daily life. 1 its goal is to discover and understand the underpinnings of relationships, which is the shared meanings that implicitly guide social behavior. 2 the assumption is that much of social life is scripted players act according to society’s rules the script. Societal norms vary in importance: 1 folkways are relatively unimportant norms and are not severely punished if violated.

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2 mores are highly salient norms whose violation is considered important enough by society to merit severe punishment. The criteria used to delineate types of norms degree of importance and severity of punishments are determined by the people in power. They are the criteria used in evaluating objects, acts, feelings, or events as to their relative desirability, merit, or correctness. Roles are the behavioral expectations for the people who occupy particular social positions statuses. The social construction of reality refers to the process whereby people learn how to define reality from other people in interaction and by learning the culture. Culture provides us with a framework for interpreting the social and physical world, particularly through language.

Ontology accepts the reality of things because their nature cannot be denied a chair, a tree, the wind, a society. Epistemology opposite of ontology argues that all reality is socially constructed. Cultural relativity is the argument that customs should not be evaluated by our standards but theirs. Customs should be evaluated in light of society’s own culture and the customs serve for that society.