I have no idea what it’s like the American way, but here in Lebanon, we celebrate st Barbara.
Long story short, Barbara wanted to be Christian but her father didn’t, so she ran away and hid in the wheat field, then she went asking for food while wearing different costumes and hiding her face, but her father ended up finding her and recognized her because of her hands, which weren’t hidden. So now every year, on the 4th of December, kids dress up and hide their faces. We then make groups with a whole bunch of other kids ( sometimes we don’t even know who they are lol ) and go pressure adults to give us stuff (money, candies, anything really), not by tricking them but by basically insulting them.
How it works is that we go at someone’s door and all sing a song ( it’s a special song for this, I’m not gonna transcribe it because it’s in Arabic ) if they open and give us stuff, there’s another little verse that we add, which praises them, saying that they’re generous. If they give only a little bit, we sing another about how they’re cheap. And if they don’t open the door at all we say that they’re old.
We also invent verses ourselves and share them, too. For example, in my family we always use this one that my father invented when he was younger that Basically says “the owner of the farm is a loud fart”
Ah, good times…
We also eat this sweet soup thing made out of wheat or whatever
