CHRISTMAS IN ROMANIA

Dear friends,

We're going to tell you all about our Christmas celebration - CRACIUN-
I. The traditional Christmas meal consists of pork cooked in different ways and for dessert our mothers bake sponge cake filled with nuts and cacao. Here are some examples:
Appetizers:
carnati - home made sausages
caltabosi - sausages made from heart, liver and the meat of the head
lebervurst - a paste made from liver and pork fat
jumari - fried fat
piftie - pork feet jelly
smoked ham
pork liver tart

Soups:
peasant soup with smoked pork meat
sour soup with meat balls

Main dishes:
sarmale - force-meat rolls in sour cabbage leaves
baked gammon
baked pork chops
pork schnitzel
meatballs
pork's alms

Dessert:
cozonac - sponge cake filled with nuts and cacao
colaci de Craciun - knot-shaped Christmas bread
sweet cheese pie
apple pie

II. Here are some special, traditional activities.
Christmas is notably marked with the tradition of singing Christmas carols - most often by children, who travel from house to house and receive treats from neighborhood families. We also go to church, decorate our houses, gardens and Christmas trees and write letters to Santa. We invite relatives and friends for lunch, dinner and give presents.

III. About presents, of course we give and receive a lot of presents at Christmas. We get presents from Santa, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and we give presents to our friends and cousins.
We receive clothes, toys, books, games, jewelery, DVDs, money, lots of sweets.

IV. Our traditional carols are: "Dom, dom sa-naltam", "Steaua" (The Star), " Plugusorul", "Astazi s-a nascut Hristos" (Jesus is born today).

V. In Romanian Santa Claus is MOS CRACIUN.

VI. We celebrate Christmas to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

VII. At Christmas the weather is cold and cloudy, and sometimes it snows.

VIII. We don't see elves at Christmas, but Santa comes in from chimney.

VIII. We don't exchange presents at school.

IX. Our Christmas holidays last two weeks.

X. We haven't got traditional games at Christmas.

XI. At Christmas we usually stay in family, but some of us also travel.

XII. We don't eat Christmas ham, we don't bake gingerbread cookies and we don't drink glogg.


Pictures of Christmas cards :