Kindo Family Blog

I would like to wish you all a happy 2008 in behalf of the whole Kindo team. We all hope you’re celebrating these days with your families, just like us.
And remember that it’s the perfect occasion to let them know about Kindo !

Here, in Spain, we eat twelve grapes, one on each chime of the clock. If your want to read more about this tradition…

As a continuation of our series of Christmas blogging, I would like to tell you about Spanish Christmas today.

In Spain, the traditional ornament of the season is the “Nacimiento” or “Belén” , which represents Nativity scenes with figures made of clay, plaster or wood. Normally every house has one and they differ a lot: from simple scenes with the Virgin , St Joseph and the child (such as the one on the right, painted by my mom) to really elaborated ones representing the whole town of Bethlehem.
The biggest ones normally belong to churches or town halls.

And there is a funny tradition for the biggest ones: a small figure of the “Caganer” represents a man literally “going to the toilet”. This colourful character is often difficult to spot. He is usually to be found in an ”outlying” area - behind a suitably placed bush, for example - and not actually centre stage with the infant Jesus himself! This popular tradition comes from Catalonia and young children often spend quite a long time trying to find it.

Even though we are losing more and more our own traditions and adopting the Christmas trees and other northern ones, the Nativity scenes are still a central part of our Christmas culture. So … Feliz Navidad a todos!

We have heard about christmas in Sweden, Spain and Bayram-celebrations in Turkey (which is not exactly christmas, but has some similarities). I will give you a brief insight into how christmas is celebrated in southern Germany.

Christmas is definitely about the family, but about old friends as well. The “Gymnasium” (sth. like the German high school) where I went to holds a get together for Alumni on the 23rd of december. That’s where you meet your teachers, old schoolfriends, the older students you admired as a kid and the younger ones you teased when you were an “old student” at high school.
In Germany “Heiligabend” (”Christmas Eve” or the 24th) is the most important day. That’s when you are allowed to bring the tree into your living room, decorate it and the kids get their presents. Traditionally you would have rather simple food on the 24th – as its still quite a busy day – and keep the goose for the 25th. We normally play and sing some christmas carols and just enjoy being together.

Many people go to church on christmas, no matter if they actually are religious or not. It’s probably the only day in the year, where you might not catch a seat and end up standing in the church. And in the city where I grew up, the young generation meets in the local nightclub around midnight, just after the older ones went to bed. So after a full day of family activities you can get down with your friends again. Keep the balance.

Merry Christmas to all of you!

So as the year comes to an end, the team thought that that it would be a great idea to give you all an early Christmas present. I am really excited to announce that we have released some new features that are sure to make your family trees a lot more enjoyable to use.

So first up, we have launched public celebrity family trees, which is something that will be of interest to all of you genealogy addicts. There is a page on the blog where I have listed all the trees: http://kindo.com/blog/celebrity-family-trees/en/

The next cool improvement that we have made is image zooming, so when you click on an image on the profile and our family pages you get a bigger image appearing in a groovy looking popup box. Go and see for yourself…

On behalf of the team at Kindo I would like to wish everyone a happy Christmas and a prosperous new year. Remember to show your family tree to your entire family when you get together over the holiday period and also get them to join the site - the more family that join the more fun it is!

There are several Spanish traditions in Christmas time, but I’ld like to tell you about one in particular, for you to get your jokes ready in a week time.

On December, the 28th, Spanish people tend not to believe any weird news on TV and to watch their backs, because we celebrate the “Saint Innocents’ Day”, which is the equivalent of the “April’s Fool” or the French “Poisson d’Avril”.

In fact, the feast has Catholic origins on the remembrace of the children’s massacre of Bethlehem by Herod the Great, called the “Massacre of the Innocents”, because little children hadn’t had time to commit any sin.

It was during the Middle Age, that children started playing jokes and tricks on older people durinh this day and, even if the Catholic Church tried to put an end to these “inappropriate” games, it has finally lasted until these days.

So,if you spend your holidays in Spain, get ready to get paper “Inocentes” stuck in your backs or to hear fake news or “Gazapos” such as Martians’ Invasions of the Earth, even in the most serious TV channels…

Today is a religious bayram for muslims all over the world. And I am so happy that I am with my family once again in this Bayram. Kindo promises to bring family together. I wish, it had a way to see my family whenever I want, who knows Anyway, I have just come a long way to see them and I am with them once again.

I love bayrams because I am together with my loved ones. My mum, dad, sisters, cousins, nephews, uncles, and the rest. It is always good to be together and bayrams do that

I wish God brings you happiness, joy and love in the bayram. Call, send a message or visit your family and make them happy today. Because you want it and they deserve it.

Happy Bayram to everyone…

Nothing in families’ lives is perhaps more colored by traditions than the way we celebrate Christmas… IF we do it, that is. (We are happy to see people from all over the globe with the twelve languages on Kindo.)

Diversified nationalities and religions backgrounds don’t only exist among our users, but also in the actual Kindo Family office. When we soon are to blow out the candles here for some holiday leave, one thing we have in common is how we all plan to go back and spend some time back home. During the rest of the week, we’ll therefore send you some season greeting cards from our different countries. First out is Sweden:

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Martin’s here! Last week in the office, I tried to tell the other guys about our Saint Lucia tradition, the 13 of December. For me, about then is when the whole Christmas thing starts. In traditional celebrations in schools and offices, Saint Lucy typically comes as a young woman with lights and sweets early in the morning. It is one of the few saint days observed in Scandinavia. More on that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Lucia_Day

Otherwise, the big celebration day in my country is the Christmas Eve. My family has a big Christmas tree inside, which we decorate the night before. The traditional dish we eat is a big smorgasbord, with the grilled ham, herring and meat balls as my favorites. My sister uses to play the horn in the church and my family goes and listen to her and take part of the ceremony. Not all Swedes are as keen on this anymore though…

One huge Swedish tradition is actually to watch “Christmas Donald Duck” at 3PM, a one hour Disney compilation, an idea that probably originates from the days when TV only sent animated film once a year. After that, many people give each other Christmas gifts. When we were younger, Santa knocked on the door and delivered them. In the evening, my family eats the rice porridge. The one who finds one of the almonds in the food has to make up a rhyme instantly. The rest of the day, we eat chocolate and play games. For me, Christmas is all about seeing the family. This year, it’ll be extra fun since it’s the first time for my sister’s new born twins!

Together with our second press release (pdf) that accompanied the gifts page, we just launched a page for press support. Find it on the top right of the blog behind that small blue link “press”, by clicking here or by just typing kindo.com/blog/press.

It contains lots of material and information that you can use, if you want to write about Kindo… no matter, if its for newspapers, magazines, TV or your blog. Just get in touch, if you have other wishes or need more stuff.

The local versions of our gifts page are released! This comes together with the announcement of great partnerships for Kindo and all our users:

• Europe’s leading online photo printing service Photobox
• UK’s leading online florist Arena Flowers
• The fun and creative printing service MOO

“Photos are central to familiesʼ memories, and with Kindo we can get in touch with families all over the world” says Stan Laurent, CEO of Photobox/Photoways, Europeʼs leading online photo printing services in Europe. On photobox.com you can print photos as well as lots of other things like photobooks, calendars and cards.

Arena Flowers is another great match with Kindo - not only because everybody loves flowers, but because it has a sense for social responsiblitiy, shared by Kindo. “All our flowers comply with the recommendations of the ‘Fair Flowers Fair Plants Organisation’. We’re a young company, but we think about social responsibility from the start, and so does Kindo” says Will Wynne CEO of the leading online florist in the UK.

Moo.com dreams up new tools that help people turn their virtual content into beautiful print products for the real world. You might know it already from our earlier posts.

So check out the new gifts page by clicking here and browse our new partners’ great offers!

Just to give our users a warning, that we are planning some brief maintenance tomorrow morning between 09:00 and 09.30 GMT.

Maintenance is over - so login to your profile and build those trees!!