Holiday tours of Pitt Nationality Rooms going virtual this year

For many people, a visit to the University of Pittsburgh’s Nationality Rooms Holiday Open House is as much a part of the season as seeing the trains at the Carnegie Science Center or taking the kids to visit Santa.

Typically, it’s been a one-day event for the past 30 years.

Not surprisingly, however, with campus buildings closed to the public during the pandemic, that tradition has been put on hold for this year. Instead, visitors are being invited to learn about global holiday traditions through dozens of videos hosted by room committee members.

The good news is, the virtual celebration of global holiday traditions will last for nearly two weeks, continuing through Dec. 18.

The virtual open house videos feature 5- to 7-minute tours produced by the Pitt student group Quo Vadis, which normally handles the in-person tours. They include performances, stories, cooking demonstrations and handmade ornaments from 31 countries represented in the Nationality Rooms.

This is the first Holiday Open House for the Nationality Rooms since longtime director Maxine Bruhns died in July. She was 96 and had been director for 54 years.

“In a year when we’ve had to do things so differently, we were trying to wrap our heads around how do we bring joy and continue to celebrate cultural heritage and do it in a mode that is safe and enjoyable for all?” said Belkys Torres, Pitt’s executive director of global engagement, who is serving as interim director of the Nationality Rooms.

“So, we came upon this idea of putting together different kinds of videos to teach folks something about a holiday tradition in a particular country.”

One of those holiday traditions celebrates Scottish literary heritage, particularly the legacy of poet Robert Burns. In one of the videos, Susan Borowski, a member of the Scottish Room, sets the 1786 Burns poem “A Winter Night” to music she wrote. She plays both fiddle and guitar during her performance.

“I chose a couple songs for a reason,” said Borowski. “For 400 years, they were not allowed to celebrate Christmas. It goes back to the reformation of the Catholic Church. It wasn’t until 1958 that Christmas came back to Scotland. I chose my song because of Robert Burns who wrote songs about winter. I wrote a simple little ditty.”

As proud as Borowski is of her performance, she said not being able to celebrate the open house in person has taken some of the fun out of the event.

“It’s like a whole different ballgame. You can’t interact with people, when people come to your table and try out a Scotch Egg or some wonderful Scottish shortbread,” Borowski said. “The look on their face, there is such delight when they try all these different foods. It’s just a wonderful experience.

“Covid has made this more about education, which is not a bad thing,”

The videos are accessible at globalhub.pitt.edu/holiday-open-house.