Wrapping up Christmas in Romania

Now that the holidays have come and gone, I can share a few observations on Romanian celebrations. The whole Christmas season was overflowing with a recognizable feeling for me. Elements of Christmas here seem to resemble Christmas in the U.S. in some visible ways – and from what I understand, a lot of these traditions are relatively new in Romania. I’ve spent Christmas in the Netherlands and in Australia, and from my experience my Christmas here felt most like Christmas in the States. At the same time, there's an underlying format for Christmas that is Romania's own.

First of all, when it comes to commercialization of the holiday season…well, I’ll just say that Romanians like to shop. Each time I went shopping in December, the big stores were packed. Chocolate is certainly incredibly popular. Aisle upon aisle of Christmas chocolates, disappearing surprisingly quickly. Christmas decorations are also big – heinous tinsel possibly topping the list. Artificial trees are big (I think this is because cut trees aren’t kept in water, so they go brown pretty quickly – and they’re also really expensive), as are tree decorations, and the most annoying: the singing lights. Stockings are available but left on the shelves as most people don’t know what they would do with them.

Santa Claus is hilarious. In one day, a person could easily come across 10 different Santa Clauses. They are really poorly costumed – usually it’s 19 or 20 year old guys with no facial hair, wearing white polyester beards with white elastic bands stretching across their bare skin, behind their heads. It’s not surprising that the only kids visiting Santa are two years old and too afraid to look him in the eye. The phenomenon of Milka Santa Claus is rather scary. Basically, Milka (the chocolate company) sponsors the main Santa Claus in town. Instead of giving candy canes to kids, he gives them little Milka bars. Santa’s helpers hold hands with the kids and they sing songs about Milka. Kids are screaming “Milka! Milka!” before Santa shows up in the morning. It’s interesting.

The Christmas celebrations start on Dec. 6, which is Saint Nicolas Day. It seems debatable, but the Christmas season lasts for about a month, though some of my neighbors still have their Christmas lights on. In Brasov, we had the huge “Grand Illumination” type lighting of the tree on the sixth, followed by several days of carol singers performing. As Christmas got closer, carolers came to people’s doors and sang, and I heard them especially on the train (I also spent a lot of time on the train during those days).

Dec. 25 is not the only “Christmas.” Carolers kept singing for several days (I left the country on the Dec. 28 so I don’t know how long it lasted, but they were still singing then). The Christmas tree isn’t even decorated until the evening of the Dec. 24, so there has to be a lot of celebration after that. Most people spend these days at home with their parents/families. In Bucharest, the city was basically abandoned as everyone went home to their villages. In Brasov, a lot of people who I talked with said they spent these days going from house to house of relatives – one day’s feast at their house, the next day at their grandmother’s, then their uncle’s. So, that definitely sounded familiar.

At family get-togethers, dads bring out their home-made wine and mothers bake traditional pies and cakes from their village recipes. This is actually really interesting – in a discussion about Romanian traditions with a group of Romanians, they all disagreed when it came to Christmas cakes, because all of their mothers are from different villages, so they weren’t familiar with the cakes that their friends have at Christmas.

Overall, the main focus of Christmas isn’t religious, although most people consider themselves Orthodox. Going to church isn’t necessarily a part of celebrating Christmas. Instead, it’s about spending time with family. Gift giving is a tradition for some families, but usually it’s a matter of giving one gift to everyone, like a cell phone for your parents. Of course, some people use Christmas as a vacation, and head to the mountains with their friends instead of going home. A lot of restaurants and cafes are open, but when we were at them we saw mostly young professionals rather than families.

The biggest difference I felt? Saying "Christmas" instead of "the holidays." We had "Christmas Break" instead of "Winter Break." Not that exciting really, but it did remind me of the plurality you don't see here, even in a region full of ethnic diversity (Romanians, Hungarians, Germans, etc.)

I’ve gotta say though, I’m glad Christmas is over. It makes it seem like it’s almost spring!