Wizarding Times

Why does the article have that title, you may wonder? Well, the first reason is because once you read the whole article you'll see that Christmas over here in Macedonia is pretty much about family, love, tradition, fun, candy, and other similar stuff, so it really seems like a Badger holiday (I haven't passed a Christmas in another country so I can't speak for anywhere else than Macedonia). The other reason is, as you might have already noticed, I'm writing this in a very relaxed style — as if talking to a friend and not as if I was supposed to write a serious scientific article.

Unlike most countries, we celebrate Christmas on the 7th of January instead of the 25th of December. But, actually, the celebration starts the day before, the 6th of January. That's when we have "Noel" ("Kolede" in Macedonian), which some people use as another term for Christmas, while for us it's the name of the holiday when the Christmas atmosphere starts.

In the morning on January 6th kids go from door to door in their neighborhood and sing songs, and people give them candy, cookies, small amounts of money, or anything else they have (according to the tradition it's supposed to be cookies and candy but I guess traditions lose their value slowly). This is something similar with what kids do on Halloween, just on Noel they don't wear masks and instead of saying "Trick or treat," they sing songs (not any song though, there are certain songs written for that purpose).

Later on that same day, people prepare delicious and, more importantly, traditional Macedonian foods. The most traditional piece of food for Noel is a special bread made with a coin inside it. At dinner in the evening that same day, the whole family sits at the table together and the first thing they do before they eat is to give a piece of the bread to everyone. Then everyone checks their piece of bread and the one that got the piece with the coin in it is believed to have a lot of luck, happiness, success, health and love during the year to come. Everyone else is also supposed to give a gift to the person who found the coin. Then the feast continues with chatting, laughter, eating and drinking.

On the 7th of January, or Christmas Day itself, during the day people visit their relatives and sometimes even stay for lunch. I, for example, every year stay at my aunt's house for lunch, although I visit quite a large number of relatives besides her. The evening is once again reserved for a family reunion. Everybody is at home and everybody helps to set up the table and to make sure nothing is forgotten (there's a belief that once you sit at the table on Christmas Eve, you shouldn't stand up until everyone stands up — otherwise, bad luck will follow you).

We don't have traditional stuff that we make specifically for Christmas Eve, such as Christmas pudding or something similar. Though we have something that we make for the winter holidays so, unless you manage to eat all of it before Christmas Eve, you serve it with the rest of the foods as well. It's called "Baklava" and its origins go back in the Ottoman Empire time (and since Macedonia was occupied by the Ottoman Empire for a few centuries, we've "borrowed" certain foods from the Ottomans, including the Baklava). Not everyone can eat it (unfortunately) since it's sweetened with syrup or honey, so it's really sweet.

So, basically, there isn't much "exciting" about Christmas, but the best part is that the whole family gathers at home during the Christmas holidays, which is rather rare here (I think my whole family gathers together only about once monthly for dinner or lunch). But the decorations are definitely wonderful for this time of the year, so if you ever have the chance to come by and pass a Christmas over here, be sure you'll have a great time!