Merry Bozik! How to celebrate Christmas in Macedonia

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Christmas in Macedonia is called Bozik. (pronounce the ‘z’ like su in pleasure)

At some point in history, the calendar was changed, and it has something to do with the Orthodox church, but Macedonia, Serbia, and Russia, missed that memo, so they celebrate Christ’s birth on January 7. There are a few interesting traditions leading up to this day, and it’s quite different from the way we celebrate Christmas in the U.S. In order to share with you what happens, I’ll describe it day by day:

January 5, Thursday:

This is the night of Kolede, the night before Christmas Eve. All the neighbors in each neighborhood get together and make a bonfire in the street. It’s ironic. They say that the fire symbolizes warmth for baby Jesus who was born in a manger, but all the men get drunk and sing uncivilized pagan songs about women. Needless to say, the men are the main organizers of these fires, and there’s lots of drinking alcohol! Meanwhile, all the women are inside making cookies and little pastries to give out the next morning, Kolede morning.

January 6, Friday

morning

In the morning, everyone is woken up about 7am or so by neighborhood children walking around with plastic bags and sticks. They come on to the porch, bang their sticks, and sing:

“Whoever’s sleeping, wake up!

Give some cookies,

if there’s no cookies, give some candies,

if there’s no candies give some nuts,

if there’s no nuts, give some money,

if there’s no money, the window will fly in pieces!”

So we give the children some cookies! I made Peanut Butter cookies with some peanut butter someone sent me, and gave them out!! : )

The meaning behind this is that the children are collecting gifts for baby Jesus, and every family is sharing gifts for that. However, again, the song comes from a pagan tradition.

Evening

This whole day, is Christmas eve, or Badnik. Very religious people (of which there are very few here) have been fasting from animal products for 6 weeks, but most people fast on this one day. You can’t eat any meat, milk, eggs, or anything containing that. We spent most of the day cooking the traditional dinner. Also, everyone stays home on this day, most businesses are closed, and no one has guests or visits each other. Here’s how the Badnik dinner goes (or at least, how it went at my homestay family’s house):

· We first turn on all the lights to show that God is welcome in our house and nothing is hidden.

· Everyone has a place set, and there is an extra place set for God and for the house, at each place setting, red wine is served to remind of Jesus who died to save people from their sins.

· All the food is set on the table, and the father of the house says a blessing for each person. Then there is a toast, and everyone drinks some wine.

· After that, is the bread: this is the coolest tradition of all! Earlier in the day, the housewife makes bread rolls, one for each person, and one for God, and one for the house. In one of the rolls, she puts a coin, then bakes the bread. During dinner, the father separates the bread rolls, one for each person, and everyone looks to see if they got the coin. Whoever gets the coin will have good luck for the whole year! (In our family, the bread for the house had the coin, so everyone in the house will be lucky!)

· After the coin is found, it is put in a small cup of wine, and that wine is passed around the table for each person to take a drink, and say a blessing. The coin is kept all year in that cup of wine!

· After the bread, the housewife takes one of two dry branches which is on the table and sticks it in the fire. However much the branch crackles and however big it makes the fire resembles how much the family will prosper that year. (Our branch crackled a LOT!)

· Now, finally, we get to eat! Oh my goodness, it was so delicious! We eat each dish one by one, beginning with the father. We had bread with pumkin, bread with rice and leeks, and bread with cabbage. These breads are called Banik. I ate so much!

· At the end of the meal, we burn the other branch as we did before the meal.

· After everyone is done eating and drinking wine, we leave the table as it is, and we don’t pick up any dishes or wash anything! Also, the dining room light is left on all night, this is so that God can come and eat from our table and bless our house.

· The rest of the night, no one goes out, and we just hung out at home with the family!

January 7, Saturday

This is Christmas day, and we woke up, cleaned the table, and went to the church. We donated money and lit candles at each candle stand. Everyone in the whole community goes to the church to light candles and donate money, and this is one of the only days in the year that most people go to church.

On this day, instead of saying “Hello (Zdravo)” or “Good day (Dobar den)”, when you greet someone, you say “Christ is born” and the reply is “Truly He is born”.

So if I came up to you on the street, I would say “Hristos se rodi!” and you would say back to me, “Navistina se rodi!”

There are no presents, no stockings, or Christmas carols. And Christmas is basically spent going to relatives houses and eating big huge meals, and staying at home and resting. We went to Baba Smelia’s house (the mother of my host mom) “Baba” means grandmother. We ate fish, sarma (stuffed cabbage), chicken steak, and salad, and bread! Yum!

PCV Sara W., out.