IGN: AyanaK

Server:S1372

UID: 200000091710673

For me, Christmas is the smell of freshly picked oranges, the smell of Sweet Bread made by my grandmother and my burning desire to eat it immediately soaked in wine. When I decorate the tree, and I wait excited for the gift to come under it. When we go to relatives on the 25th, to have a family meal and laugh, to exchange experiences and warm words. It's my grandmother's hug, and the strong smell of sweets in the house. It's the sound of wood burning in the fireplace, and the soundtrack of the movie Home Alone. It's the first Harry Potter movie with Cacao (It’s cocoa powder that you mix with milk – kind of different from Hot Chocolate). Christmas is the time when you wake in the middle of the night to go to the toilet and look out the window and see the city covered in snow, untouched by any car or human foot. And you stay at the window, good minutes, and look at the view and the untouched snow. You have a feeling of calm and happiness. What could be purer than that?

I believe that there are two types of people on Christmas: People who have been taking the Christmas spirit since November, when decorations have their place on the shelves of shops and the temperatures is getting lower. When people find themselves in hoodies and sweaters, with a cup of warm chocolate with marshmallows in their hand, browsing the TV and seeing the schedule of TV programs full of Christmas movies. And the second category is the people who leave any type of shopping related to Christmas in the last week, when they decide to decorate the tree, to buy candies so that they can receive carolers properly. I certainly belong to the first category. As a scorpion, I prefer to use the idea of my birthday to convince me that it is ok to buy so many new decorations every year, and I leave myself manipulated by the multitude of glitter and color. I and my family have the tradition of buying a new globe every year. Even If that year we couldn't afford to buy many things, yet in the symbol of tradition we had a new globe, regardless of the price. In other years we bought several globes when we had a better material situation regarding the money, but what I want to emphasize is that, even in times when we were struggling, we always had a new globe. Now that I work and decide what to do with the money, a large part of them go to Christmas Decorations in November.

One of my favorite traditions is decorating the Christmas tree. Dad takes the Christmas tree out of the attic, and then I try to think of 2 predominant colors of the globes I want. The tree is decorated with red-pink, red-silver or red-blue. I spend about 2 hours decorating it. After that I decorate the exterior, we have the installation on our house from last year so that’s done, and the only thing that's left it's to put tinsel on the columns of the house and on the staircase. I also have a Christmas Wreath that comes on the door. I really like to surprise my loved ones with gifts, and to spend time with my loved ones, so I look for the right gifts in time and I don't leave them on the last hundred meters. My mother usually wraps them up because I don't know how to do it.

One of the traditions I do with my friends is to get together on a Saturday at someone's house from my friend group, drink Cacao and watch Home Alone together. It is the film of our childhood, played on TV every year.We get together every year and do Secret Santa.

In the part where I live in Europe, we have many traditions that many people in the rest of the world can regard as barbaric. But they lead to the preparation of the celebration of Jesus Christ's birth like cutting the pig, setting the tire on fire. But I think it would be good to skip over them and move on to the beautiful traditions. Carolers is like Halloween for American children. But here too, adults participate and have their own thing. This is called "a merge cu capra" and they wear masks, costumes and dance and use certain tools to play music. They pass through villages, towns - even in town people come to the window, attach the money to a * and let it go to be able to pay the carolers. For adults, money is given, but for children, in some parts of the country people can give sweets, nuts or oranges instead of money. I love to hear something like that, it's like the snowdrops flower announcing the coming of spring, these carolers being the harbingers of Christmas. Every year, we open the door to carolers (young children) to listen to their poetry and give them pennies. The joy and happiness of children's faces is everything. My grandmother used to feed some children every Christmas. They knocked on her door every year, and she rewarded them with good food. ( see this if you wanna see a example of the "a merge cu capra" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53mzsSomI6Q)

Children and the elderly go to church a week before Christmas. People over the age of 7+ (those under they skip the confession and can go directly under the table and then to the other priest), go to a priest to confess their sins, and then are allowed to go under the table about 5 times and to leave a flower on it. Afterwards, (even babies a few months old) go to another priest to get wine from a silver s* that symbolizes the blood of Jesus, and pieces of bread that symbolize his body. After children grow up and become teenagers, they do not practice this tradition until they become parents. I miss the moments when I was a child, and I didn't have to participate in cooking. The moments when I was waiting at the kitchen door and looking fascinated over the tasty food prepared by my grandmother. I think I can still smell it now. Now my mother and I prepare food two days before Christmas. My parents and I, compared to traditional food, we eat baked chicken with raisins and dark beer every year because it is very good, and on New Year's Eve we are not allowed to eat chicken because tradition says "we would go back like chicken" and we would must "go before like the fish." Some of the traditional food my mom's make is: roast gammon, pork chops, polenta, cabbage rolls, sweet bread and honoring the pig.

On the evening of the 24th, Santa Claus distributes gifts to adults and children who have been kind. Many of the children try to stay awake so they can actually catch Santa. I remember when I was little that I lived with my grandparents and on holidays with my parents. My parents only had one bedroom, so I slept with my mom when I came to visit and my dad in the living room. I remember doing the Christmas tree in the living room and it was the only night a year I slept with my father. I was trying to catch Santa but I never made it. I can't even say that I slept with him the whole night, I woke up around 2-3 am every time, took the presents, the pillow and went back to my mother's room.

On the 25th, the priest comes in the morning, both to the city and to the village, to bless everyone’s house. It is the day when mothers wake up their children in the morning to prepare for the coming of the priest - my mother is no different. Waiting for the priest is very tiring, because you wake up and it takes a long time for the priest to get to your house. The priest go through all the houses with the “icoana” and the holy water. Afterwards, the families gather at the table and eat the food prepared a week before. My parents and I go to relatives every year on this day. They live about two hours away from us, so we don't see them very often. Christmas is an opportunity to spend time with them.This Christmas I'm going to make snowman-shaped muffins to bring them. And this year will be beautiful! I wish everyone a happy holiday and success in this contest.