Christmas in Hungary

 



Dec 17 Decorating the Church
    


On December 17, the whole church decorated the Christmas tree and sanctuary. It took a while to put up the lights, so the children got a little impatient. At first, they did silly things like hanging the Christmas balls from their ears. Then they found a live ladybug which kept them busy for half an hour. 


December 23, I still did not have a Christmas tree, so my friend brought me some braches that she cut off of ther fir tree.  On Sunday, she had brough me gingerbread cookies, brightly wrapped candy, and dried citrus fruit to decorate the tree (top row, third picture). Appartnetly, the tradition in Hungary is to wait until Christams Eve to put up the Christmas tree. The parents put it up after the children go to bed.  Jesus puts presents under the tree for the children (Santa puts candies and nuts in their boots on St. Nicholas Day, December 6.)  I added one bough to my nativity scene display. A friend from church painted a Christmas ball with a Bible verse in Hungarian (bottom two pictures) 















Christmas Day is family day. My friends are traveling to visit their parents. I saw a few people walking down my street this morning, but the city has been mostly quite. I invited  an international friend whose plans for the holiday had been canceled. I didn't have anything fancy to eat--just a Hungarian Christmas dessert (top row, first two pictures on the left), some potato soup with celery and tomato to add read and green, apple sallad with green and read applies and some mandarin oranges, and some divinity that flopped since I don't have any eggbeaters to fluff up the egg whites. My friend brought a special Iranian dish that she made.  After lunch, we took a walk to the park in the rain and I also walked her back to her apartment in the rain. She invited me up to tea and I showed her the games that I play on my phone. We spent the evening playing Mexican train online. It has been a special day. 






Comments

  1. Sounds quiet and creative for Christmas Day. Hope you have a Wonderful New Year!!

    ReplyDelete

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