TRADITION TAKES A HOLIDAY, SORT OF : MORE CULTURES MEAN MORE DAYS OF CELEBRATION.

Byline: Patti Doten Boston Globe

In years past, ``the holidays'' meant Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year's Eve. Today, with a society that's increasingly multicultural, that phrase includes the Hindi festival of lights called Diwali, the African-American seven-day celebration of Kwanzaa and the Latino Three Kings Day.

Symbols and traditions handed down from generation to generation - from Santa Claus and his sleigh to decorating the Christmas tree to lighting the menorah - ritually mark these holidays. While many families hold onto the same traditions year after year, others are charting new territories by embracing and melding several celebrations.

Therapist Niti Seth, who is Indian, and her husband, Ken Lappin, celebrate a variety of traditions with their two daughters, even though the couple do not practice a formal religion. The Cambridge, Mass., family started the holiday season this year by celebrating the Hindi festival of Diwali on Nov. 10.

``The moral of this celebration is that good triumphs over evil,'' says Seth, who grew up in a Hindu home but went to Catholic schools and often attended midnight Mass on Christmas Eve and Muslim festivals with friends. ``Diwali is celebrated by putting cotton wicks soaked in oil in little clay pots, lighting them and placing them throughout the house. An array of Indian confections are served to family and guests. And rice and coconut are always served to the goddess of good fortune on a silver tray.''

The family then celebrated Hanukkah, lighting the menorah candles each night and singing songs - ``the children know more Hanukkah songs than their father.''

This past Sunday, the family bought their Christmas tree and followed that with their annual tree-decorating party.

``I just think this is the season for families to celebrate one another and their friends,'' says Seth. ``I want my children to embrace all these celebrations and have them as part of their tradition.''

The six-member Bourne family of Dorchester, Mass., also celebrates more than one holiday. They observe Christmas with a tree, gifts and a special meal, then on the 26th they begin the seven-day celebration of Kwanzaa. Although not a religious holiday, it is a time for families to get together to honor ``the seven principles of blackness'': unity, self-determination, collective work, responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith.

``The ceremony each night consists of coming together and setting the Kwanzaa table with a straw mat, a candle holder, ears of corn and a chalice filled with fruit juice,'' says Wendell Bourne, a teacher at Weston Middle School. ``On the last night, Kuumba, which falls on New Year's Eve, we invite families to our house for a night of singing, feasting and reflection. Guests bring favorite dishes and dress in traditional African clothing.''

Small gifts are given to the children on Kuumba and parents praise each child's accomplishments and express their hopes for the future.

``Kwanzaa,'' says Bourne, ``is structured in a way that no matter what a person's religious background, he or she can participate in the celebration.''

Even when a couple is Latino, Christmas traditions vary from country to country. Maria Cabrera is from Cuba, and her husband, Antonio Ramirez, is from El Salvador.

``In Central America, the Christmas season starts at the beginning of December with weekly posadas - candlelight processions that re-create the search by Mary and Joseph for a place to stay,'' says Cabrera, a community relations liaison at Boston's Museum of Science. ``Then on Christmas Eve, everyone gathers at the parish church before returning home to eat chicken and turkey tamales and roast chicken stew.''

In Cuba, posadas are not celebrated, but Christmas Eve is also the focus. Cabrera and her family hold an open house and serve both Salvadoran foods and a Cuban pernil, or pork loin, with turron, a rice dish. Traditional music is played, from the South American cumbia to Cuban salsa to Gene Autry's Christmas album. The festivities end when everyone leaves for midnight Mass.

On Christmas, Santa Claus brings a few gifts, and more gifts are exchanged 12 days later on Three Kings Day.

``We set up a creche in early December and place the three kings in another room,'' says Cabrera. ``They slowly move closer and closer until they reach the Nativity scene on the Epiphany, Jan. 6. Last year, I found my daughter's Barbie doll, clad in a scanty bikini, sitting with Mary and Joseph and waiting for the baby Jesus.''

Two extended Boston-area families, one Italian and the other Polish, bring generations of traditions to their Christmas celebrations.

Gail Sacramone, part-owner of the hair salon Persona, her family and their relatives start the festivities by going to 4 o'clock Mass on Christmas Eve.

``Then we go to my aunt's house, where everything that swims is cooked and put on the table - stuffed calamari, shrimp scampi, baked stuffed shrimp, linguine with clams, baked stuffed lobster, bouillabaisse,'' says Sacramone. ``And there is every kind of Italian pastry imaginable for dessert. I bake a diet angel food cake.''

She, her husband and their two children then return home, and she prepares the Christmas dinner she will serve to her extended family of 35 the following day: a huge antipasto, ravioli and sauce, a 10-pound beef tenderloin, a turkey and ham, and chicken cutlets for the children.

Relatives begin to arrive at noon. ``I don't sit down the entire day, and the dishwasher never stops,'' says Sacramone, who has hosted this dinner ritual for 15 years. ``Everyone leaves by 9:30, I wash my kitchen floor and then fall into bed.''

Jody Lafko, a nursery school teacher in Brookline, Mass., says her Polish father-in-law does everything for Christmas, from putting up a 20-foot tree in his living room, to cooking Christmas Eve dinner with such traditional fare as fish balls, haddock and barley, to distributing gifts on Christmas to his eight grandchildren and then preparing the Christmas meal as well.

``We usually congregate at Poppa's house around 11 on Christmas and have a meal of turkey and lots of pies for dessert,'' says Lafko. ``Poppa loves this holiday and makes it a magical time for all of us, especially the children.''

Moira Sutherland, head of accounting at DeWolfe Realty in Cambridge, Mass., says her family always gathers at her parents' home in Washington and celebrates Christmas Eve with fried oysters and pizza.

``The opening of presents never varies,'' says Sutherland, who has two siblings. ``We open our stockings and then have breakfast. Then each person opens one present per hour so the suspense lasts all day. We have a very formal dinner around 5 with candles, linen tablecloth, china and silver. No jeans allowed.''

Her brother-in-law, Phil Lipman, whose family celebrated only Hanukkah, finds his in-laws' Christmas gift-giving disheartening because it's so regimented.

``I prefer spontaneous gift-giving,'' says Lipman, a Realtor at DeWolfe. ``I'm more a give-gifts-all-year-round kind of guy. But once I get to Washington, I generally get with the celebrating - it's fun and funny. And yes, my wife and I always get a tree - some years I help decorate it, some years I don't. And no, I don't celebrate Hanukkah, and that's really bad.''

The holidays aren't always a time of celebration, especially for people without families. Travel agent Arlene Lewis of Corporate Image Travel in Boston says many single men and women escape on a cruise or to a Club Med. These trips ``are great because singles don't have the trauma of eating dinner alone,'' says Lewis. ``Plus it's safe - women can wear their jewelry and stay in the casino as late as they wish.

``For families celebrating Christmas, it's no longer through the woods to Grandma's house,'' says Lewis, ``but up in the skies on Delta to Florida where Grandma lives in retirement.''

Many Jews have their traditions on Christmas, too. Rob Bercovich, a freshman at Brown, says his family goes to the same Chinese restaurant on Christmas and then to the movies. He wrote about this tradition last year in an article for his high school paper.

``The editors were discussing who they could get to write a piece about what Jewish students did over Christmas, and I volunteered,'' says Bercovich.

He wrote: ``Jews who celebrate no other holiday with this bizarre combination of Chinese cuisine and a movie have elevated this tradition to the level of religious pilgrimage. ... After a feast of hot and sour soup, Gen. Tsao's chicken and fried rice, I drive over to the theater. ... The roads are deserted, but when I arrive at the theater, the lines of Jews resemble the Exodus from Egypt. Spying an old friend from my Hebrew school, I yell out to him, `Merry Christmas.' ''

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Photo: Margo and Wendell Bourne and their children Cheo, left, and Nori light candles for Kwanzaa. It ``is structured in a way that no matter what a person's religious background, he or she can participate in the celebration,'' says Wendell Bourne.