GLOBAL CHRISTMAS TRADITION
CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR TRADITIONS IN MACEDONIA
Christmas tree in our town (Prilep)
About 18th of December we decorate the Christmas tree with colorful decorations and lights and we begin with the preparations for the holidays. It’s tradition to send post cards with the best wishes to friends and family, but last years post cards are slowly replaced with e-cards.
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!
New Year's Day is celebrated together with family or friends at home or in restaurants, clubs, cafĂŠs and hotels. During the day-time celebration children get gifts. Evening celebrations include food, music, and dancing to both traditional Macedonian folk music, and modern music. New Year's Eve is celebrated on December 31 and also on January 14 according to the Macedonian Orthodox Calendar.
Skopje – the capital of the Republic of Macedonia
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!
We celebrate Christmas on January 7. The reason for this is that the holiday is calculated used the Gregorian calendar. The Christmas celebrated on December 25 is calculated using the Julian calendar). Another big difference is the length. In Macedonia and other countries there is a total of 5 days of Christmas related traditions that everyone tries to honor.
Orthodox Christmas celebrations begin on the evening of 5 January, known as Kolede. Children go from door to door singing Christmas carols and receiving fruits, nuts, and sweets from the people. Later in the evening, the elderly gather around a fire outside and engage in a conversation about the past year and about the year to come.
January 6th is Christmas Eve (Badnik) For many people, this is the last day of the 40-day Nativity Fasting period. The dinner served on this night is 'posna' which means no dairy, meat or animal products. Christmas Eve is a time of peace and reflection of the past year, and is celebrated with a dinner with the closest family members. A typical dinner would include assorted nuts, fresh and dried fruits, baked cod or trout with garlic, bread, kidney-beans soup, potato salad with onions and herbs, ajvar (a traditional red-pepper dip), sarma (rice and spice-stuffed cabbage leaves) and pickled vegetables. A traditional decoration for this meal is an oak branch with leaves.
January 7th is…Christmas Day People who celebrate the holiday in a more religious manner, use this morning to go to a church service. This is also a day when people visit each other with the greeting “Hristos se rodi” (Christ is born!) which is replied to with “Navistina se rodi” (Indeed he is born!).
Because the fasting is now over, the meals served on this day are a true feast: an abundance of aromas, colors and flavors; a real holiday for the taste buds. A typical Christmas dinner consist of various roasted meats, festive side dishes, cheese pies, creamy and fresh salads, cakes and sweets. The Christmas celebration usually continues for 3 more days.
The night of January 13th, people gather in their houses or in restaurants. This holiday in Macedonia is known as "Old New Year" (Стара Нова година). Traditional Macedonian music is sung and it is tradition to eat home made pita with a coin inside. Whoever finds the coin in his part is said to have luck during the year.
Two years ago, when we were in the first grade Santa Clouse (Dedo Mraz) came to our school to give as presents (he comes every year and gives presents to the youngest students). You can see some photos form that New Year celebration in our school.
Here we are, together with the Santa Clouse, the director of the school, the mayor and other people who represent the municipality.
Every year the director of the school together with couple of the smallest and the biggest students in our school are visiting every class and by giving sweets to everyone are wishing to all students Happy New Year and Merry Christmas
Some of the Christmas decorations in our school
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!
Christmas in Croatia
Christmas • Christmas is a Christian holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ • The word Božić in Croatian comes from the diminutive of the word God (Bog) • We celebrate Christmas on the 25th December
Advent • This is the time before Christmas • It starts 4 Sundays before Christmas and ends on Christmas Eve • We make advent wreaths with 4 candles which we light every Sunday before Christmas
Christmas wheat • We sow the wheat on St. Lucy (13th December) • Later it is a Christmas decoration (we put a candle or an apple in the middle) • It is believed that the denser the wheat the better the harvest
Christmas Eve • On this day people make Christmas meals like turkey, they clean and decorate the house and cook dinner (fish) • After the dinner the family goes to church to midnight mass
Christmas tree
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We decorate the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve Long ago people used to decorate Christmas trees with flowers or fruit Today we decoate it with Christmas lights and balls We put presents under the tree People usually put Christmas creches (made out of wood) under the tree
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CHRISTMAS IN SLOVENIA BOŽI Č V SLOVENIJI
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Three good men visit Slovene children in December: 1.St. Nicholas 2.Santa Claus 3.Grandfather Frost
St. Nicholas gives presents to good children and punishes the bad. He gives presents in the night from 5th to 6th December. He is the most popular good man with Slovene Christian children.
Santa Claus Is not really a part of Slovene tradition, but children love him never the less. He travels around in his sleigh pulled by reindeers.He enters the house through the chimney and leaves presents under the christmas tree in the night from 24th to 25th December.
Grandpa Frost The character is based on Russian Ded Mroz whose name was in Slovenia translated to DEDEK MRAZ – Grandpa Frost. He likes all children- the good and the bad. He is depicted as a slim man wearing a grey leather coat, which has fur inside and is decorated outside, and a round dormouse fur cap. He lives under Mt. Triglav (Slovenia’s highest peak) and brings presents on New Year’s Eve.
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Christmas Decorations in Slovenia
Christmas Tree Christmas trees are a ‘new’ thing in Slovenia –they arrived here in the middle of the last century from German lands. Before that people hung small pines up-side down and decorated them with things they could find in the forests or at home (beans, corns …) They represented greatfulnes for the food that they have produced.
NATIVITY Nativity is a model of Jezus’s Birth. The creation of nativity scenes is a tradition in Slovenia that dates back several hundred years. Though the creation of nativity scenes to display in churches and at home is common, live, publicly viewable nativity scenes have grown in popularity.
The best-known live nativity scene in Slovenia is the one in Postojna Cave.
This is what a typical nativity scene looks like in almost every Slovene christian home.
CHRISTMAS CARDS The most recent tradition is actually written greetings cards, which appeared in Slovenia, as elsewhere, in the 20s of the 19th century..
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Slovene Christmas dishes
For Christmas it is obligatory to prepare dishes that included honey, poppy seeds, dried fruit, millet, walnuts, hazelnuts and beans. Traditionally we prepare numerous special kinds of bread, cakes, pies, strudels and most particularly, potica roll cakes. This is an original Slovenian culinary speciality, known throughout Slovenia in various names and versions (povitica, optica, gubana, gubanca, gobana, pogaÄ?a), and featuring a wide variety of fillings
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CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR’S CUSTOMS IN GREECE
At the beginning of December we decorate the Christmas tree with colorful decorations and lights. At the bottom of the tree we put the manger (crib) which represents Christ’s birth.
On the Greek islands they decorate a ship with lights instead of a tree.
Mothers make or buy the Christmas cake and the traditional Christmas sweets called “kourabiedes, melomakarona, diples and baklavades�.
On Christmas Eve children go from door to door and sing Christmas carols.
On Christmas Day, at noon, we eat the Christmas cake and baked turkey.
On New Year’s Eve the children go again to the neighborhoods and sing the New Year carols.
In the evening, we wait for the New Year coming, sitting around the table. We cut the New Year pie with the “lucky coin� in it. The person, who will find it, will be lucky for the rest of year.
On the morning of 1st January we break a pomegranate outside the front door of the house, for good luck.
• The person who will be the first to enter the house enters with his right foot and must be lucky, so that he can bring good luck to the family of the house.
On 5th January children sing the carols for the Epiphany.Priests go from door to door to bless the houses so that “goblins� can disappear.
On 6th January we celebrate Epiphany, that is Christ’s baptism. On these days priests bless water near churches (rivers, lakes, ports). Priests throw the cross in the water to catch it. The one who catches it, is regarded as the lucky one. Everybody drinks the blessed water and takes some to his house to bless it.
AT SCHOOL
• The last day (23rd of December), we go to the church. Then we have a small celebration at school, singing Christmas carols and exchanging greetings.
CHRISTMAS WISHES Καλά Χριστούγεννα (Kala Christougenna)-Merry Christmas Καλή Χρονιά (Kali Chronia)-Happy New Year or Ευτυχισμένος ο Kαινούριος Xρόνος (Eftichismenos o Kenourgios Chronos )-Happy New Year
INTERCULTURAL PRIMARY SCHOOL IN ALSOUPOLI ATHENS-GREECE Teacher Vaia Miariti
Christmas/Noël • A Christmas Tradition of Cyprus is to make sweets and cakes, like “kourapiedes “and “melomakarouna”. We also decorate a Christmas Tree and invite friends and relatives for dinner!
• During Christmas we have 2 weeks holidays. • The last day of school we go to church and then we celebrate with songs, poems and dances. • We decorate a christmas tree usually the first or second week of December. • On Christmas day we go to the mess early in the mornimg and when we return home we open our presents. Lunch time we have a big feast with a lot of food and all the family getting together. • New Year’s Eve again the family gathers to welcome the New Year. • We usually eat, watch TV,and play cards.
What do we eat • Roast turkey with stuffing. • Potatoes • Pasta • Salads • Souvla • Koupepia
• Pasta(pasta with mince meat and tomato sauce)
• Koupepia(minced meat wrapped in grape leaves)
Pork or lamb meat on the charcoal • Souvla
New year’s Day
• At New year’s Eve all those that have a fire-place in their houses, put olive leaves in the fire. As they throw the leaf they sing: << ΑΪ vasili, (Saint Vasilios) vasilia, show me if somebody loves me>> and you tell the name of the one you want to know if he loves you. If the leaf burns with noise, that means that, the person you wished to love you, loves you. Also at New year’s Eve, we make New-years cake that has coins in. Whoever finds the coins, is the lucky
• A traditional cake called « vasilopitta » for New Year’s day. • We put a coin inside and whoever finds the coin is the lucky one for the year.
Epiphany( 6 of January)
â&#x20AC;˘ During that day the children go to the neighborhood and to relatives and sing a song to get money: <<Good morning, is Epiphany day so you give us first of all money>>
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T he End
Christmas Eve in Bulgaria is celebrated on December 24.
Christmas is celebrated with a vegan meal that usually consists of an odd number of dishes, most often seven or nine.
The most important dish is the Christmas bread. Bulgarians usually prepare a round loaf in which they would put a silver coin. It is commonly believed that the person who finds the coin will be rewarded with good fortune in the coming year.
The Christmas meal also includes beans, stuffed peppers, rice wrapped in vine or cabbage leaves, boiled corn, leek pastry, honey and walnuts, boiled wheat with sugar, baked pumpkin, and lots of nuts, pop corn and fresh fruit.
rice wrapped in cabbage leaves
boiled wheat with sugar
beans
baked pumpkin
stuffed peppers
â&#x20AC;˘ The typical Christmas drinks are stewed dried fruit, called oshav in Bulgaria (plumps, apples, pears and apricots with lemon and spices), red wine and rakia, a strong alcoholic drink produced from fermented and distilled fruit.
â&#x20AC;˘ People traditionally believe that if there are many dishes at the table the next year would be richer and fruitfulness.
â&#x20AC;˘ We have a very special tradition in Bulgaria, which comes from ancient times (before Christ). Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s connected to the Winter solstice and the belief that people should fight the evil forces of Nature (darkness, cold, frost, blizzards, infertility and all of the kind). This ritual, called SURVAKANE is very important for the good health and overall prosperity of people and agriculture.
â&#x20AC;˘ SURVAKANE was traditionally performed by young boys and men, but nowadays itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a privilege for all children.
â&#x20AC;˘ A special tree branch is decorated with all kinds of coloured threads, dry fruits, peppers and popcorn.
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The youngest of the family takes the Survachka, and beats with it at the backs of all family members, reciting special verses with good wishes for health, wealth and fertility.
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Then they repeat the ritual with the livestock, the trees and plants, in the yard and go outside to meet other youngsters with Survachka. In groups they visit the neighbourhood and for each beating and good wishes, they get special treats and coins.
• We have made “survaknitsi” at school.
• A girl is saying wishes for health and wealth while tapping with “survachka” our headteacher Mr. Stoyanov and bless him “Surva, vesela godina! Do godina, do amina!”. That means “Happy, healthy and Merry New Year!