Crăciun în România -Christmas in Romania

In Romania, the winter holiday season is truly in full-swing from December 24 to January 7. Highlights include: Christmas Day, New Year and Epiphany, with their respective eves. The most important feature of these celebrations is their unique variety of colorful Romanian customs, traditions, and believes, of artistic, literary, musical, and other folklore events, which make the winter holidays some of the most original and spectacular spiritual manifestations of the Romanian people. Children of all ages go from house to house singing Christmas carols, or through the streets on New Year's Eve reciting congratulatory verse. The whole traditional village participates in waists, although mostly children practice this custom.

“Crăciun Fericit “ means

“Merry Christmas”in Romanian

Traditionally, during the first hours after dark on Christmas' Eve is the time for children to go caroling and the adults stay home to greet them. As they go caroling from house to house, the children receive treats like candy, fruit, baked treats and sometimes even money in appreciation of their performance and as a sign of holiday good will.

The grown-ups caroling goes on Christmas evening and night. The waits -young and mature people - gather in groups and they choose a leader. When they are in the front yard of a house, they perform their repertory to the host. The songs are always accompanied by dance. When the performance is over, the host invites the carolers inside the house for food, drinks and presents.

 

How to Celebrate a Romanian Christmas

Arrange to go caroling in your village or town on Christmas Eve.

      Make a star (called a “Steaua") out of shiny paper and wood, and attach it to a broomstick for the leader of your group to carry. Hang bells and ribbons on it, along with a picture of the Holy Family.

Children make a star using colored paper and then they put in its middle an icon of Jesus. Many of children decorate their star using shiny tinsel.  The “Star Carol” is a tradition during the 3 days of Romanian Christmas.

 While holding the star in the hands the children sing:

 "The star has appeared on high, 
Like a big secret in the sky, 
The star is bright, 
May all your wishes turn out right…"

Go from house to house until the wee hours of Christmas morning.Expect to partake of nuts, apples, pretzels (“covrigi”)and cakes along with the other carolers.

Throughout the season, teenagers and young adults especially enjoy caroling with the “Goat”. The “Goat” is actually a usually boisterous young person dressed up in a goat costume. The whole group dances through the streets and from door to door, often with flute music. This tradition comes from the ancient Roman people and it reminds us of the celebration of the ancient Greek gods. 

 This custom is also called "brezaia" in Wallachia and Oltenia, because of the multicolored appearance of the goat mask. The goat jumps, jerks, turns round, and bends, clattering regularly the wooden jaws. 

"Sorcova" is a special bouquet used for New Year's wishes early New Year’s morning. Children wish people a “Happy New Year!” while touching them lightly with this bouquet. After they have wished a Happy New Year to the members of their family, the children go to the neighbors and relatives. Traditionally, the "Sorcova" bouquet was made up of one or several fruit - tree twigs (apple-tree, pear-tree, cherry-tree, plum-tree); all of them are put into water, in warm place, on November 30^th (St. Andrew’s Day), in order to bud and to blossom on New Year's Eve.

 

Romania is a country with several cultural influences, so Christmas traditions are quite diverse and cannot be generalized.