Christmas in Hungary is one of the most widely celebrated and popular festival in Hungary. The holiday season in Hungary starts with advent of Christmas and continues till the New Year. This time of year is spent in the preparations for Christmas. The candles are decorated with red and gold ribbons which symbolize life and brightness. Most of the children get Advent calendars with a small gift or candy for every day before Christmas.
Christmas is a private, family holiday in Hungary, and the people do not go to parties. Most families decorate the tree together, but some follow the older tradition that the tree should be a surprise for children who even believe it was brought by angels. The children enter the room only when the small tree bells ring and music arises. Gifts hang from the colorful tree with small labels spelling the name of someone in the family. The family-members sing the Christmas carol together and then open their gifts and spend the night together.
Food on Christmas:-
The special menu for Christmas night is usually cabbage or fish with the special poppy-bread called "beigli." In the 2 days holiday of Christmas big families meet and often travel to another town to visit each other.
Folk traditions in Christmas:-
There are a many folk traditions attached to Christmas in Hungary. Some of these traditions originate from the pre-Christian years, before 1000. In the last decades most of the folk traditions has been disappeared from real life, but still today they are observed in small villages. The day of Luca is celebrated and is also known as the day of "love predictions". The largest Christmas-tradition is the "Betlehem play," which has a great written script and is widely appreciated. Some days before Christmas groups of boys go house-to-house with a model of the holy family and perform a short play about the child Jesus with songs and poems usually in costumes.
The Santa of Hungary:-
The Hungarian Santa is known as Mikulás, (Me-ku-lash). He visits children on 6th of December, St. Nicholas' Day, which is the name day of "Miklós." If the child has been good then Mikulás leaves the boot filled with goodies - traditionally with tangerines, walnuts, candies, apples, dates and chocolate Mikulás figurines. There is no Mrs. Santa in Hungary, but Mikulás often comes with one or two small evil boys, called "krampusz (kromm-puhs)."
For more information on Christmas in Hungary, visit travel.mapsofworld.
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