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TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION

The happiest Christian holiday brings joy, peace to the quarrels and carries the message of love and harmony. It is celebrated for three days, gathers all generations and preserves tradition.

It is celebrated as a remembrance of the birthday of Jesus Christ. Christmas Eve, straw, ,,kvocanje”, garlic, position are just some of the customs and rituals that aim to beg God to preserve and increase the family and property of the host.

Christmas Eve

Customs say that on the eve of Christmas, Christmas Day, the oldest and youngest man go to the forest in the early morning to get a Christmas tree – an oak or cherry tree that they will bring into the house during the evening. Christmas Eve symbolizes Jesus Christ and is cut with a special rite. It used to be like that, and today it would be perfectly fine to go to the green market for a Christmas tree branch and bring it into the house just before dinner. One drain branch is added to the Christmas tree, which symbolizes health and strength.

When men come with a Christmas tree, the family greets them and congratulates each other on Christmas Day with the words: “Good evening Christmas Eve” and “Good evening and happy Christmas Eve”.

It is a woman’s job to decorate the Christmas table. Among Serbs, Christmas roast is most often a pig or gilt, a young pig, and in some parts it is a lamb or a young sheep and is called a merry-go-round. It is baked on Tucindan (day before Christmas Eve) and on Christmas Eve it is brought into the house and leans against the east wall, where it stands until Christmas, when it is served. Chicken, goose, duck or turkey in many parts must not be on the holiday table because of the belief that feathered poultry is a symbol of regression and disintegration of the house, because it bites and throws soil behind.

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The main task for the children, and at the same time the biggest entertainment for all the family members, is to drink and look for gifts and sweets hidden in the straw. The children imitate chickens and go behind the mother of “coca” and the older members of the household. This is a symbolic representation of parental love, that is, the love of Christ for the human race. Then everyone sits down at the family table and congratulates each other on Christmas Eve. Dinner with the Orthodox is fasting, it consists mainly of prebranca, fish, sauerkraut, pickles, and after dinner it can be sweetened with fasting pie, dried fruit and nuts.

Christmas

On Christmas Day, women bake garlic, which is mostly salty, and can also be sweet, depending on the family heritage and climate. It is made of white flour, with water and fat, without yeast. It is celebrated on the first day of Christmas, before sunrise. It turns like a celebration cake, pours wine over it and in the end breaks it into as many parts as there are people in the house. A coin is hidden in the garlic, and it is believed that the one who finds it will be happy all year round (although people usually associate it with being rich all year round). It happens that the coin is “accidentally” found in the very piece that will belong to the youngest member of the family. Our women also started to put a dogwood for health and corn for wealth.

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On Christmas morning, one goes to church for service and communion and eats the first fatty breakfast.

Christmas is a family holiday, so you don’t go to guests that day. The only exception is the first person – the first person to enter the house on Christmas day and it is usually a child or a person close to the family. He enters the house and wishes Christmas to the family with the words “Christ is born”, and the family responds with “The truth is born”. Then the layman lights a Christmas tree branch and begins to say a toast: “As many sparks as there are good luck. There are as many sparks as there are health and money… “The host shares the garlic and allocates a piece to each household member.

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According to the legend, business should start on Christmas, in some places those who were especially difficult the previous year believe first, so that these “run smoothly”. And it is considered that what happens and is done on Christmas – will be done and will happen all 365 days. Also, the fruit in which the garlic mixing bowl was washed should be watered with fruit trees to give better fruit or flowers to bloom better.

The dough that remains on the hands of the housewife after mixing the garlic, she puts on the fruits that bore poorly in order to give more fruit next year.

Somewhere it is on the shoulder of pechenitsa. If there is meat left on the bones, it is believed that the cattle will be fertile that year.

On Christmas morning, in the morning, a circle should be made in the yard from the rope with which a handful of straw is tied and corn and wheat for chickens should be put in it. It is believed that they will lay eggs in one place throughout the year.

In recent years, the tradition of Belgraders is to gather in front of the Temple of Saint Sava on January 6 in the afternoon to attend the lighting of the Christmas tree, and also on the morning of the 7th, thousands of people traditionally gather to break the Christmas garlic.

Balkan travel wishes you a Merry Christmas, with the desire to spend them in peace and tranquility with your loved ones.

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