Dancer on Tomohon International Flower Festival (TIFF), a biannual event in Tomohon
Christian
During holiday times, the people will decorate their houses, the lanes, the streets and so on with special themes. For example, during Christmas and New Year Christmas ornaments can be easily found anywhere in town. In several corners and intersections or in front of the church, a big white candle would stand up iluminating the lightless surrounding or a big decorated Christmas tree. Christmas musics starts playing as soon as September. They normally say "the months end in '-ber' are Christmas." During 1st - 24th December, the smell of Christmas cookies usually feel the air. The standard Christmas cookies in Tomohon such as nastar, kastengels, rambutan, biji-biji, sultana, snow white, kacang koek, corn flakes, and so on. The names of Christmas cookies are varied too. Christmas season would normally end with together with New Year on January 31st. During December, there would always be celebration they called it pre-christmas. In one month, a person could attend more than 10 pre-christmas celebration, for example pre-christmas of the office, of the church, of the neighborhood, the school, the relative, family, youth organization, woman organization, from NGO, sunday schools and so on. All the celbration will end in a certain day called "kuncikan", literally means closing day.
Chinese's Holiday
The Chinese in Tomohon also still maintain their tradition of celebrating Chinese New Year and the biggest festival is on the 15th day after New Year, called Cap Go Meh. There will be a procession of calling the spirits of the Chinese Gods or Goddesses to possess mortal human bodies and they will be carried on sedan chairs from the temple around downtown to bestow their blessings on its believers. In this procession, the possessed mortal will perform magical things such as piercing the his own cheek with some solid and sharp stick without from one to the other side without any bleeding out, a sword carrier will hit his own back with a very sharp sword without injuring himself, the other will cut his own tongue without injuring himself as well. This procession usually attracts attention of the whole town.
Islamic Holiday
Islam believers, although, a few, but they still have number in Tomohon. There is a special community in Southern Tomohon, they lived in a village called Kampung Jawa, literally means Javanese Village. Idul Fitri and the Month of Ramadhan are also celebrated here. However, there is not special procession for the holidays like at the other cities in Indonesia but praying in the open field on the day of Idul Fitri.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Tomohon
Where To Stay & Best Hotels in Tomohon - updated May 2024
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Tomohon Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.
