Christmas in Romania

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Christmas in Romania
Official nameCrăciunul în România
Observed by
25 December
Next time25 December 2024 (2024-12-25)
Frequencyannual
Related toAdvent

Christmas in Romania (

post-communist Romania
, Christmas started being celebrated again more festively.

The

Christmas Day (Craciun in Romanian), Saint Stephen's day, New Year's Eve (Revelion in Romanian), and the Epiphany
.

Advent

An icon representing the Nativity of Jesus

The seven-week

The Savior.[3] All said, there are forty days of advent (seven to nine of them being exceptions), this being the second abstinence period as length during the Romanian religious year, after the Easter advent.[4]

During this season, the Christmas holiday season in

Saint Andrew's feast day on November 30.[5] Customs say everyone should hang plenty of garlic and a crucifix next to all doors and windows on the mansion, to keep evil spirits and spells away from their home.[6] Strigoi or vampires may appear during the night between November 29 and November 30 as this night is popularly known as Noaptea lupului (Night of the wolf).[6]

The next day, December 1, is the

National Day of Romania.[7] It is celebrated by all Romanians. In Bucharest and Alba Iulia Romanian Armed Forces have parades, showing their Land and Air vehicles and performing the Romanian national anthem "Deșteaptă-te, române!", used for the Union back in 1918.[8] People are given free mititei and fasole cu cârnați while they party into the night.[citation needed] Free music concerts and street festivals are organised annually in every Romanian city. There are also numerous Television specials, most notably ones broadcast by Pro TV,[9] which bring famous or important Romanians into the spotlight.[10] The day usually ends with fireworks
.

Children exchanging gifts during Secret Santa, a Romanian custom for Saint Nicholas Day

At the beginning of December, the

sweets or books; if they have been naughty, they get wooden sticks.[12]

On December 20, Saint Ignatius Day, Romanians start the last preparations for Christmas. On this date, they cut

public markets or supermarkets
.

On December 24, Christmas Eve - Noaptea de ajun - is traditionally the day children usually start caroling their neighbors.[14] On the same date, women bake traditional cookies to give children for their caroling. By that time, the Christmas tree must usually be already decorated. Those more pious attend the Royal Hours and the afternoon Divine Liturgy before preparing for dinner.

Christmas music

Music is an important part of Christmas celebration all over Romania. There is a special genre of music, related to

traditional / Christian lyrics. These are named colindă. Although the text of all colinde is concerned with the events of the Nativity, certain elements of the folk rituals performed around Christmas are probably pre-Christian in origin, having their roots in the Roman Saturnalia and pagan rituals related to the winter solstice and soil fertility. Colinde are performed in all parts of Romania (including Moldova
), with regional variations in terms of the number of participants, the exact timing of different melodies and lyrics.

In traditional Romanian rural society, preparations for colinde started well in advance (sometimes weeks) before Christmas. The village youth (usually boys) would begin to form groups in different places and designate a leader to practice singing in unison. These groups are called cete de colindători, and their numbers vary from region to region.

Then, starting on Christmas Eve, the groups would go to different houses and begin singing. In some villages, they go first to the mayor's house, followed by the teacher's house, whereas in other parts there is no pre-established order. The families would then invite them into the house and give them different small gifts such as nuts, dried fruits, and pretzels. There are also adaptations from international hit carols into Romanian, for example "Noapte de vis" (from "Silent Night") or "O, brad frumos!" (from "O Tannenbaum").

Examples of colinde with religious subject are "Astăzi s-a născut Hristos" (Today

Three Magi and of the Christmas star. The latter one, "Sus la poarta Raiului" is a portrait of the Manger
during Jesus' nativity.

Apart from the religious songs, there are also many other original colinde about subjects like Joy,

Christmas Day. The third and fourth ones are about specific Romanian customs to provide and maintain health or prosperity. They count some reasons for Caroling. The last one tells the story of a family where the mother wasn't able to cook colăcuț (special Christmas pastry). They ask the host to whom they perform the colind to give them a colăcuț, claiming their mother didn't have the tools and ingredients to make it. As we can figure out, the song was originally performed after New Year, as they claim that "When the oven started working, the New Year had already arrived! [sic
]"

Christmas market in Sibiu, Transylvania

Many folklore musicians covered, re-mastered or did renditions to those songs, some of them being well-known artists such as

Împreună de Crăciun / Concert extraordinar de Craciun and take place at Sala Palatului in Bucharest
. He also released a Christmas album including the top ten smash hit "Doar o dată e Crăciunul" (Christmas Is Only Once).

Singer

Christmas compilations
— "Colinde şi cântece sfinte" (out 1998), "Albumul de Craciun" (out 2002), "De Sărbători" (out 2006) and more lately "A mai trecut un an" (Another Year Over) (out 2010). She released three music videos to promote the albums for the songs "O, ce veste minunată!", "Trei păstori" and "A mai trecut un an".

R&B singer Andra also released a Christmas album in 2007, entitled "Vis de iarnă" (Winter Dream). The title single benefited from a music video in which Andra is traveling home to gather with her family for Christmas. Singer Elena Gheorghe also covered the song "Silent Night, and alongside band Mandinga released a Christmas album "De Craciun
".

Romanian Top 100
.

In late 2009, Bănică, Jr starred in a

LaLa Band
premiered a Christmas album on December 1.

A lot of compilations have been released for Christmas in Romania, for example, the "

I Need You for Christmas" series. Radio station Magic FM
only broadcasts Christmas songs exclusively from December 5 to January 5 starting 2008. They name themselves "Santa Claus' Radio Station".

Starting in 2010, a special

Christmas albums are also record-breakers. In 2010 Carey's album "Merry Christmas II You" broke all records by selling over 10,000 albums in one week. The record was then broken by Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" just to be broken once again by another Christmas album in 2011 when Justin Bieber's "Under the Mistletoe" sold over 12,000 units in one week. It was later on broken by yet another Christmas album by Michael Bublé simply entitled "Christmas
" album that sold over 15,000 copies in a singular week. By now it is one of this year's biggest-selling albums with over 30,000 units sold in less than a month and a half.

Christmas food

During Christmas, Romanians bake or buy various special dishes, including desserts and sweets. Romanians most usually bake

Panetone made of flour, yolks, yeast
and many other ingredients, flavors, condiments and additions. There are several types of spongecakes, with hundreds of recipes. You can either knead it for hours to be ready in 6 hours, or you can let it rise for 1 hour to avoid kneading it. You can fill the sponge cake with walnuts, cocoa, raisins, Turkish delight and in Transylvania: poppy seed paste (cozonac cu mac). Plates heaped with small pastries and cakes (corni și baclava) are prepared to serve to carollers when they call.

A molded vegetable and chicken salad held together with mayonnaise and decorated with olives and boiled eggs are often prepared. It is called Salată de boeuf from the French, although it usually does not contain beef.

Other Christmas dishes include piftie, sarmale, and pork dishes.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c "Postul Craciunului". Crestin Ortodox. CrestinOrtodox.ro. November 14, 2011. Retrieved December 8, 2011.
  2. ^ "Lasata Secului pentru Postul Craciunlui". November 14, 2011. Retrieved December 8, 2011.
  3. ^ "Ajunul Bobotezei, zi de post aspru". Archived from the original on April 6, 2012. Retrieved December 8, 2011.
  4. ^ "Posturi peste an". calendarortodox. December 8, 2011. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved December 7, 2011.
  5. ^ "Tradiţii pentru spor şi sănătate de Sfântul Apostol Andrei". Observator. observator.ro. November 28, 2011. Archived from the original on March 6, 2016. Retrieved December 8, 2011.
  6. ^ a b "Ziua Sfantului Andrei - sarbatoarea magiei, a strigoilor si a descantecelor de dragoste". December 8, 2011.
  7. ^ CIA World Factbook, Romania - Government[dead link]
  8. ^ Romanian Institute for Cultural Remembrance, The Resolution of the National Assembly in Alba Iulia on December 1, 1918 Archived June 8, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  9. ^ "3 milioane de telespectatori au fost alături de ProTv de Ziua Naţională". CM. zf.ro. December 2, 2011. Retrieved December 8, 2011.
  10. ^ Inna on Maruta Archived 2012-04-26 at the Wayback Machine
  11. ^ Povestea lui Mos Nicolae Archived 2011-12-07 at the Wayback Machine
  12. ^ a b "Mos Nicolae". Retrieved December 8, 2011.
  13. ^ La Ignat, cand se taie porcii
  14. ^ Sărbătorile de iarnă în Bucovina, e noaptea Sfântului Ajun! Archived 2012-06-04 at the Wayback Machine
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Christmas_in_Romania&oldid=1194154503"