[OFF TOPIC] Happy Holidays and Birthdays Thread

[Olympian1010 7,973]

I was sure that the Czech Republic was very religious. I mean they just gave a shit ton of land back to the Catholics, undoing the one actually good policy the communists had put in place. Public land shouldn’t be owned by the church, it should be owned by the people. Mountain Bikers shouldn’t have to ring the local bishop to ask for the ability to practice their sport on land the government had let them ride on for years.

[rybak 3,217]

 Happy Independence Day Poland  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Long live to my country!  

[Olympian1010 7,973]

Happy Krampusnacht to all of the Central European users 

[hckošice 14,823]

and happy st. Nicholas day ! Hope everyone found something sweet in their clean boots https://slovakia.travel/en/st-nicholas-day-6th-december

 

 

 

 

 

[Olympian1010 7,973]

21 minutes ago, hckosice said:

and happy st. Nicholas day ! Hope everyone found something sweet in their clean boots https://slovakia.travel/en/st-nicholas-day-6th-december

 

 

 

 

 

I had a really nice kindergarten teacher that wanted to teach us about other countries traditions, so she did this for the entire class. At my school, we had a nap period in kindergarten (like an hour after lunch or something) and on the 6th that year she surprised all of us (35 or 36 students at that time) with candy and school supplies in our shoes. Personally she was more of a witch or krampus to me (absolutely hated me, like most of my elementary instructors, which is funny because I was friends with more faculty than students in high school ), but it was a really nice surprise that I still remember to this day.

 

My family also used to hide a pickle for anyone aware of that Christmas tradition. We also do candy canes on the tree, advent calendars, or go looking a Christmas lights around town one night before Christmas. We also generally see a PG13/R rated movie Christmas Eve.

 

So is Christmas just a minor holiday in Slovenkia then @hckosice? Or do people still do stuff for Christmas too?

[hckošice 14,823]

6 hours ago, Olympian1010 said:

So is Christmas just a minor holiday in Slovenkia then @hckosice? Or do people still do stuff for Christmas too?

 

 

Never heard about carp in the bathtub ?

 

Christmas is THE thing here ! The christmas lasts the whole 3 days from 24th to 26th, they are by law day-offs, everything must be closed. with the main day being the 24th in opposite to the half of the world, the christmas gifts are presented the 24th after the christmas dinner, and it´s not santa claus or anything similar who bring them under the tree, it´s "Ježiško" Literally Baby Jesus it varies between different houses, but in our family it´s always around 6 PM when we end the dinner and start watchiing the traditional Christmas TV program with former extremely popular czechoslovakian fairy tales movies and classic US christmas movies

 

But The thing that is about christmas in Slovakia is...

 

 

 

the superstitions !

 

hard to present all of them, maybe the most interesting for foreigners are

• the one about the cutting of the apple tradition to see if the star in the middle is not damaged and that means the house will experience prosperity during the next year..

 

• or about the tradition that every families also set an extra place in the table for either an unexpected visitor or a departed relative....

 

• but certainly the one that is the most important, when you´ll come one day to Slovakia for christmas, Never, never but never and when I say never, I mean NEVER ! Never leave the table untill the whole dinner is over, otherwise someone from the peoples sitting around the table will die untill the next christmas !

 

The only eligible person to stand and leave its chair is the person who is designed to serve the food or open the door etc... anyone else can not, even if you need to go to the toilet, you are unlucky, you´ll have to wait until the dinner will be finished

 

https://www.wideopenspaces.com/slovakian-christmas-dinner-tradition-carp-bathtub-video/

 

 

[heywoodu 15,135]

St Nicholas Day (or 'Sinterklaas' as it's called here) is mostly celebrated here on the evening on the 5th of December, when 'St Nicholas' and his team spread around presents and candies and more presents to the children. Of course it's actually the parents and family and so on who buys it and the question is when to tell your children that, but fine  We don't have little children in our family, so we didn't really celebrate anything apart from buying some of the tasty stuff associated with this day (chocolate letters and so on)  

[heywoodu 15,135]

22 minutes ago, hckosice said:

 

• but certainly the one that is the most important, when you´ll come one day to Slovakia for christmas, Never, never but never and when I say never, I mean NEVER ! Never leave the table untill the whole dinner is over, otherwise someone from the peoples sitting around the table will die untill the next christmas !

 

The only eligible person to stand and leave its chair is the person who is designed to serve the food or open the door etc... anyone else can not, even if you need to go to the toilet, you are unlucky, you´ll have to wait until the dinner will be finished

 

I wonder how many people actually believe this  

[heywoodu 15,135]

All these things about 'traditional superstitions' one reads from different countries always makes me wonder how many people actually believe it (or just do those things because that's what they're used to, but don't actually believe someone will die if action X isn't performed), and also it makes me wonder: are we, as Dutch, really so level-headed that we have - as far as I know - literally zero of these superstitions that more than a handful of people actually believe in?  

[hckošice 14,823]

15 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

I wonder how many people actually believe this  

 

well, I think no one but it´s a sort of tradition, everyone do it because it does so for centuries. weird or not, it´s actually in our DNA, we can not exist and celebrate our holidays without all those superstitions

 

I remember when I was younger and my uncle wanted to go to the bathroom my grandma literally started screaming "Jesus Christ ! Are you crazy ? sit down immediately !".