25th December 2015 / 2 comments

I am sitting on the 3rd floor of my mum’s apartment in the city center of Belgrade and emailing all around the world wishing a Merry Christmas to all my friends scattered around the globe, from Rachel in Nepal who is doing charity work after being dumped yet again, to Elke in Thailand after being made redundant yet again, to Fran in London doing an MSc in Environmental Science after deciding that she had enough of travelling. Out of sheer fun, I wish Merry Christmas to my friends in China even I know they don’t celebrate it. They do the same to me.

I can hear my mum on the phone to her brother in Holland and her best friend just across the river Danube in a different part of Belgrade and wish them a Merry Christmas too.

Despite the celebratory feelings the Serbian people don’t actually celebrate Christmas on the 25th December. Serbian Christmas comes a bit later on the 7th January – some people in the West call us the “Eastern Catholics”. This is because of our use of the traditional Julian calendar, under which December 25 falls on the Gregorian calendar’s January 7.

During this festive time, you greet another person with “Christ is Born,” which should be responded to with “Truly He is Born.” The Serbian name for Christmas is Božić, which is the diminutive form of the word bog, meaning ‘God’.

Most Serbian families celebrate the Christmas/New Year season with a Christmas tree in the house. The decoration of the tree is a very good opportunity to gather family members around, and the main tradition is for the head of the household to go into a forest on Christmas Eve (6th January) preferably before sunrise, or at least before noon, to select a young and straight oak tree and a log cut from it is in the evening ceremoniously put on the domestic fire. A bundle of straw is taken into the house and spread over the floor.

On Christmas Day, (7th January) the celebration is announced at dawn by church bells and by shooting. Huge importance is given to the first visit a family receives that day. People expect that it will bring prosperity and well-being for their household in the ensuing year; this visit is often pre-arranged. Christmas dinner is the most celebratory meal a family has during a year. A special, festive loaf of bread is baked for this occasion, and the main course is roast pork. It is not traditional in Serbia to exchange gifts at Christmas. Gift giving is, nevertheless, connected with the holiday, being traditionally done on the three Sundays that immediately precede it. Closely related to Christmas is New Year’s Day by the Julian calendar (January 14 on the Gregorian calendar), whose traditional folk name is Little Christmas.

I won’t be in Belgrade for little Christmas but I am sure I will celebrate it in London with my friends Rachel, Elke, Fran….

 

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