My dear friends,
It’s been a wonderful year and I was lucky to meet great people coming for ski touring, hiking and walking in Romania.
Christmas is one of the most important holidays in Romania and maybe the most beautiful as it’s celebration differs depending on the regions. As you know, my family is original from Transylvania (“Ardeal”) – Ucea de Sus village, just at the base of Fagarasi Mountains. Here, the Christmas tradition is very important and maintained for hundreds of years. On the Christmas eve, early in the morning, the young unmarried boys prepare to scour through the village to wish all the people happy Christmas. But first, they go to the church to receive blessings from the priest. This group of young bachelors is called “Ceata de feciori” and they wear special traditional outfit. They go from house to house and sing special carols, dedicated to all the people in that house. As a gift for their carol, they receive a special Christmas bred (“colac”), a piece of smoked pork meat (“pece”), a bottle of home made brandy (“rachiu”) and some money. They do this all day long and finish the next day early in the morning, about 4 am, when they go to the church to attend the Christmas service.
I used to do this too when I was a young boy 🙂 I don’t have pictures with me doing this but I made some for you, so you can taste a little bit the Romanian traditional Christmas feeling, and some videos are on my Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/iulian.cozma
Best regards,
Iulian
December 30, 2013
