This will be strange for many of you, but my family and most of my country, just celebrated Christmas this weekend. You may wonder isn't Christmas on 25th of December? Yes, it is, the date is the same, but the difference is in the calendar. Our church still uses the old, Julian calendar, and the difference between new, Gregorian and that one is 13 days. This is why we celebrate Christmas on 7th of January, by Gregorian calendar. So in this post I am sharing some of the traditions and customs for Christmas, and how we celebrated it this weekend. Customs are not same for all parts of the country, but mostly same.
The first tradition is that in the early morning of the 6th, people (usually head of the house and men in the house) go in the forest to take a tree that we call 'badnjak', and bring it home. This is actually a oak tree. People put it at home, in home, some even attach it to their cars, or put in front of the stores if they own it. As not everyone can go to the forest to get it, you can also buy it in many places in the city, and there are various arrangements of it, such as this one show in the photo.
Christmas day is last day of the fast, but even those who didn't fast the entire fasting time, they fast on Christmas day. This means we don't eat any animals or animal products, expect fish.
For Christmas Eve tradition is to bring 'badnjak' and put it in the fireplace as it will create many sparks. Also, if you go to the church in the evening, there is a big fire pit outside made from oak trees.
At midnight there are many fireworks and firecrackers everywhere, but luckily, this year there wasn't too many near my home, as Teddy is so scared of it. This is not so traditional, but it became a custom in lately years, as a way to celebrate Christmas.
For Christmas day, we have 'cesnica' which is special bread. In this bread maker puts many different things: piece of badnjak, or more of it, that could have different meanings such as house, health, success, progress... A penny that represents wealth, a piece of corn that represents pigs and a bean that represents sheep. This is because earlier most of the people had pigs or sheep. So each person in the family gets a piece of 'cesnica' and in it (if lucky) something that will be good for them in this year. I was lucky to get a penny two times and even a bean that was there by mistake (sometimes it can happen that someone gets more things and someone nothing, if you don't brake bread properly). Some people put less things, some people put enough things for everyone to get something, there are no specific rules. And of course, on Christmas, everyone is having a great big meal.
These are not all the customs but the biggest ones. Hope I could bring how we celebrate Ortodox Christmas little closer to you with this post.
Thank you for reading my post and Merry Christmas!
