Vianoce! (vee-an-o-ts-eh)

Christmas Christmas Christmas in Slovakia! Okay there's a lot to write down here so you can't say I didn't warn you! Here we go!

December 24th
The majority of the celebrations occur on this day. And I would say the Slovaks know how to celebrate! I woke up to my grandma in the kitchen cooking soup which was such a nice surprise. My parents were both at work still and my brother sleeping so I had a nice little chit chat with her (in slovak of course) and it was really nice. She gave me tiny glass of borovicka, a special Slovak alcohol made from pine, because as she put it 'its a special day'. My parents came home from work and running last minute errands at about 12 and we sat down for lunch. It was special mushroom soup they only eat on christmas eve. Once the soup was done, much to my surprise no more food came out. Apparently it's tradition to fast on Christmas Eve from noon lunch until you eat the big dinner around 5 or 6. I thought it was funny though because they all said, you can't eat anything, but you can drink. And drink they did. But I'll get to that later. But man oh man was it a good thing I fasted! I really don't think I could have fit all that food into my stomach any other way. I mean wow! There were several courses to this meal and each one was fantastic!
Course one: capustnica. Soup with sauerkraut, sausage, mushrooms, and a whole bunch of other stuff I'm not sure I really want to identify. It was good but definitely not my favorite thing in the world. I'm not a fan of the sour cabbage which is rather unfortunate because the Slovaks can't seem to get enough of it.
Course two:Carp and potatoe salad. This was delicious! Now my family doesn't follow the whole tradition with the carp (thank goodness!) because it entails buying a live carp at the supermarket (you should see the giant tubs they have of them on pretty much every street corner) and keeping it in your BATHTUB until Christmas when you kill and eat it. Just as glad I didn't have to experience that Slovak ritual firsthand. And I just have to mention the potatoe salad here is to die for. It has boiled egg and cheese and potatoes of course and all kinds of veggies and garlic and mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
Course 3:Rice cakes with honey and garlic. Yup you heard right! It was one of the strangest combinations I think I've come by yet but it was delicious! You take these paper thin rice wafers (I don't even think we have them in Canada) and smother them in honey and then toss in some raw crushed garlic and bon apetit! They say it's for good health in the new coming year because all the Slovaks seem to be convinced things like garlic and tea can ward all kinds of disease. And I dunno, could be true, you never know!
Course 4: Oh yes there's more. Fruit. Placed in front of me was this giant bowl heaping with every kind of fruit imaginable. Wonderful it was!
Course 5: Okay and this is the last one I promise. Sweets. All kinds of homemade goodness! Chocolate and caramel and cookies and nuts and anything else you can imagine. But by the time you got to this course I must say I was rather full. I dare say they do it in this order on purpose. It was probably for the best. And it's not like I haven't eaten my fair share of sugar over the past few days. What with being surrounded by platters full of sweets, it's kind of hard to avoid.

Once the eating had ceased. Thank goodness, because I thought I might explode,the present opening commenced. Now in Slovakia, Santa Clause doesn't exist (there is st Mikulas who came on Dec 6th if you remember) and instead they say the baby Jesus brings the gifts himself. The whole story is much more vague than the Santa Clause one. There is no mention of how Jesus makes it to all the houses, there's no magic sleigh with flying reindeer, and the presents just seem to appear under the tree sometime in the evening. Much less convincing if I do say so myself. So we exchanged gifts, jesisko (little Jesus) brought some for everyone. I got a Slovak cook book in English which I'm really excited about. Now I can cook up some Slovak cuisine for you when I return home! And a shirt that has a slovak man on it eating Halusky. I gave my host parents a card with an attempt at a kind message in slovak in it, an ornament I bought while in Vienna, and a picture of us together which I had framed. Writing in the card turned out to be a whole lot harder than I thought. I know quite a few words in Slovak now but they are all very direct and to the point so it's kind of hard to write a nice mushy message. What I came up with in the end was something along the lines of Thank-you Thank-you Thank-you! You are fantastic people! But they got the point and they really seemed to like it.

Then the rest of the family came over and the celebrations really began. And this is where the alcohol comes in. The Slovaks really know how to drink! Now I mentioned before I had a shot of borovicka in the morning with breakfast, well that wasn't the last. I had one at both lunch and dinner and then there was more than one glass of wine. And I was trying not to drink! You see it's like this; as an adult (or youth for that matter) in the Slovak community it is essentially your responsibility to have a glass in your vicinity at all times. And, as I quickly figured out, when that glass is empty that means you want more, not that you are finished. So the key is to keep one sip in the bottom of your glass so it looks like you're still drinking it. This way you can avoid countless refills and questions as to why you're not celebrating. So that was the beginning of the evening. Later on, say 9 or so, everyone picks up and relocates outside. Yes outside! We stood around in the middle of the street visiting and drinking with the neighbors for the remainder of the evening. I ended up leaving early as I went with my host grandma to church. This was the highlight of my evening. It was so nice to walk (we could walk because it was 7 degrees that day)to the church hand in hand with her and hear the christmas carols. I loved it, it was almost magical!

Some other little things that I noticed that were interesting was in the morning our neighbor brought over a plate full of goodies for us to enjoy! I thought that was a nice treat! As well the door bell was ringing a lot more than usual that morning and everytime it did my host bro would run and look out the window to see who it was before he answered it and he often didn't answer all together. I didn't understand why until he explained that the gypsies often go door to door around christmas looking for money I think. And that brings the 24th to a close.

December 25th: Vianoce D'en: Christmas Day
Christmas day is a whole lot more relaxed here and it consists of more eating and drinking. Everyone crawled out of bed by 1 to get ready for the big dinner at 2. All the family came over again and we shared a meal of goose, tortillas, knedla (what everyone calls dumplings, but they really aren't dumplings), and purple stewed cabbage. This is most definitely my favorite Slovak meal. I love the purple cabbage, actually on second thought I love it all! I would dare to say I like goose more than turkey in fact. Oh and funny story. Much to my horror I had the honor, as a guest and young person, to eat the liver (yes the liver!) of the turkey. And after they phrase it like that and my host dad tells me very emphatically how he loves the liver and its the best part, I couldn't exactly turn it down. So I ate it. It really wasn't that bad actually, kind of good in fact. My host mom fried it up, drowned it in grease (like all Slovak cuisine) and then folded it in a tortilla. It was much better than the school cafeterias version that's for sure!
And then all was finished. The family went home by 5 and we just sat on the couch in front of the tv and digested. What we watched on the tv however, I found to be quite entertaining. They were a series of old Slovak and Czech Fairytales. All of which included old hags, peasants rebelling, witches, and dragons. I didn't really understand any of it but just watching the acting was entertaining. It is also tradition to play the Slovak version of Cinderella here on Christmas too.

December 26
Nothing. A very uneventful day in Slovakia. In fact, almost all of the shops are closed. So definitely not any Boxing day blowout sales going on.

And there you have it; Christmas Slovak style! I'm really grateful I had the opportunity to partake in all of their celebrations. It was a really cool experience and I'm sure there's only more to come in the next year!