Check out this festive Czech Christmas tradition:
http://pragueblog77.blogspot.com/2007/12/mikolas-day.html
I meant to post this on Wednesday, as that is the official day they celebrate St. Mikolas Day in the CZ. I was explaining it to the girls and I'm not quite sure they could wrap their little minds around it. It seems pretty straight-forward, albeit completely bizarre, but in my own experience it would often vary (as traditions do) and was left pretty wide-open to interpretation.
First of all, we were instructed by our Mission President not to tract on the 5th of December. Mostly because St. Mikolas rings people's doorbells when he arrives (and so do unsuspecting missionaries) and we would probably cause an all-out wig-out for the kids of the home who would probably be a little disappointed we weren't dressed up in costumes offering candy, etc. "But we have something much better and fulfilling than candy..." Also, something I picked up pretty soon after arriving as a missionary, almost every holiday (and non-holiday) involves lots of alcohol and drunk Czech men and missionaries don't mix. We would see drunk Mikolas's in the town square chasing around the angels and devils (and other innocents bystanders), and our Mission President just didn't want to go there, so he quarantined us. Wise man. But that didn't mean we couldn't observe the crazy Christmas mayhem from our apartment window. (We had a great view of the town square.)
I found this blog entry from a girl's "Prague Blog" (clever, eh?) and it seemed to explain the tradition pretty well. I don't remember the potatoe thing, but I had a pretty limited experience with it as well. In my experience, the angel gave the kids lots of candy, but if the kids were bad, the devil took the candy away. (Insert Count Dracula cackle here...) It was a pretty intense experience for the little kiddos. Some were either left in a sugar-induced stupor or traumatized by visions of devils stealing their candy or giving them potatoes. What!?! (I know, it's not even as weird as their Easter. Remind me to post about that come April.) Anyway, that's St. Mikolas Day, and now it's on to the actual Christmas day (Vanoce) and its' own set of (wacky) traditions. (Because the Santa thing is pretty much over with St. Mikolas, they await their presents being delivered under the tree by Jezisek (yez-ee-shek), the baby Jesus. That's right the baby brings the presents. Hmmm...
Hope you're all having fun with your own holiday traditions!!
7 comments:
You left out the part about the eel in the bath-tub to keep alive until Christmas dinner ... Br-r-ack !
Why do those eastern european traditions seem so much freakier than our cute jolly st. nick?
And an eel kept in the bathtub for Christmas dinner?? That's awesome.
Safari sez it can't find the server for the Prague Blog. Have you got one too many http's ?
Thanks for catching the bad link, Mom. I fixed it, and you can enjoy the pics now.
Yes, the fish thing is a whole nother story. It's actually a carp (gross) and they have pools of fresh, live carp you choose and you can either have them club it over the head and take it home dead or take it home live and fatten it up in your bathtub until Christmas dinner. GROSS! I can honestly say it's the nastiest fish I've ever eaten...tons of tiny little bones and really "fishy" tasting. They serve it with potatoe salad, saurkraut and dumplings of some kind. Nothing like our turkey and ham and fixin's!!
Sha-maz-a-nee-SEER! That is all I have to say! :) Ha Ha!
Yes, the smazeny syr, aka "shma-za-nee seer" also known as fried cheese is one of the actual delicacies of the Czech people. That's something they actually know how to do right!!
Yikes! I'll stick to Santa, elves, and turkey dinner!
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