I think here is a good place to start. Right at the beginning of December all of the Christmas decorations start to appear all around the city. Even in the malls....These are just two of the many life-sized displays inside the mall that added to the Christmas decorations. (The first picture says "1 kg carp for 1 soul") Ha! Lyds and I were so confused. And after asking Czechs about these devil scenes, most of them just laughed and said something like, "I don't know... you know....like for December 6th, St. Nicolas day." So....on December 6th, St. Nicolas comes with a devil and an angel, and visits all the children. If the kids were good, they get a small gift. But if they were bad, the devil can take them and bring them back to hell. Ha! what? So young ones can be kind of scared of this experience. In any case, its a day where kids get little gifts and candies and it starts the Holiday season. Adults don't really celebrate it so much. Although when we went to a pub that night many people had on devil horns or angel wings.
There is another czech tradition...one that is all too familiar. They are Christmas Cookie crazy. They make tons of different kinds of cookies, and they are all very delicate and pretty and intricately decorated. They are also the smalllllllest cookies i
have ever seen. For example... one chips ahoj cookie could easily be the equivalent of 3 czech christmas cookies. Which means you end up eating 20 cookies in a sitting. I thought this year i would get out of making cookies.....because for those of you that know, it is my families tradition to have ME make a million. But... we were invited to an annual cookie decorating party and attended! I was humbled by the czech women and their impressive decorating skills. I can not compete with that.
December was full of Christmas parties. Younglife movie night showed Elf...which is still amazing. Our church had Sunday night Advent services... one of which Fishnet put on. I somehow found myself on stage with a small group of people singing Christmas carols...which everyone knows are either too high or too low for any normal person to handle....and speaking about the wreaths symbolism, while lighting one of its candles and almost starting a much larger fire. We also had a Fishnet Christmas Dinner at a nice restaurant that had an english menu - the first i have seen here. (dad - Adam gave us scratch off lottery tickets at dinner... how did he know that thats what you do?)
Our last party was just the 5 of us (Laura, Jonna, Lyds and me all from ESI together, and Ashley from Younglife). We had decided to each draw a name and make gifts for eachother....which of course, I love! Then we met for Christmas dinner and exchanged. (Mom - Laura made Lasagna...how did she know that thats what you do?) Jonna made me a sweater with a robot on it :) Lyds made ash an apron. Ash made Jonna a corkboard. Laura made lyds an owl pillow and travel activity book. I made laura a pistachio holder and activity/countdown book. It was lovely. Warm, homey, and comforting as Christmas should be, and unexpected considering I am as far from home as possible.
Oh and one last thing....Santa does not bring gifts to children on Christmas morning. Baby Jesus brings them during Christmas Eve dinner, which is fried carp and potato salad.
No comments:
Post a Comment