Romania is said to be a poor country, at least in financial terms, and Romanians are, by their own admission, somewhat disorganized. But neither trait was much in evidence during December as my fellow Bihorians got ready for Craiciun, the Romanian word for Christmas. This American visitor in their midst is delighted to observe variations on familiar customs – and the generosity of friends and neighbors here. As with Halloween, it is particularly intriguing to see how songs and symbols from “home” are given a Romanian accent.
At the end of November, Christmas decorations, cakes, and candies were abundant in the local stores – not much different than we would see in Target. In early December, lights began to adorn homes and town centers; the newer of the two Orthodox biserica in town held a colinda – the singing of Romanian carols. Groups of children and adults from neighboring villages performed, all dressed in traditional costumes -- women and young girls wear glorious black velvet vests and aprons over white eyelet skirts and blouses, all embroidered with flowers and sequins – a visual delight. The men wear white shirts and pants with decorative belts and sashes, black boots and black lambskin hats.
The next weekend, we had our first snow – only a few inches, but enough to suggest the season. At school, one of my classes was reading a selection from Charles Dickens, which inspired me rather spontaneously to decide that my 10th and 11th graders should know something about “A Christmas Carol.” Vocabulary lessons for them; other sorts of instruction for me. No “Bah, Humbug!” here.
A group of high school girls were interested in teaching carols in English to younger children, as the start of a possible volunteer program. This, too, became a learning experience as much as whatever else it might turn into. The older girls were eager to do the tutoring, but by the time our lesson was to occur, the 7th and 8th graders had organized their own Christmas production, with some guidance from their truly gifted English teacher. One boy had written his own Christmas song, another delivered “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” with the innocent charm of an adolescent chess player, and two girls did “Twelve Days of Christmas” without missing one lord a’leeping.
A chorus dressed in Santa hats sang Romanian and American songs. Most popular are “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” “Feliz Navidad” – they prefer the Celine Dion version to that of Jose Feliciano – and of course “Jingle Bells.” As for our contributions, “Go Tell It on the Mountain” worked well because it is easy to learn; not so for “Away in a Manger.” Most of the younger children were able to follow along on “T’was the Night before Christmas” even if a lot of the vocabulary was over their rooftops.
After this celebration, I went to another at the middle school where a fellow volunteer teaches. Though the show got underway a half-hour late, the production was a delight – and at my friend’s suggestion, it even included a printed program. Though Romanians are fond of certificates for all sorts of things, programs are not part of the culture. The mix of songs – and students in Santa caps singing them – was similar to those at my school. But this one included a college-age dance group and a display of homemade baskets brimming with holiday foods.
When I listen to Romanian carols, I’m intrigued that so few tunes are familiar, but later that evening I had an opportunity to hear several hundred people join Romanian singing sensation Fuego in a few of their favorites. “Colindim, colindim iarna” – we sing, we sing, of winter -- has become one of mine, too. Before the concert – the first I’ve attended in Romania – some women were selling holiday items made by participants in program for disabled adults; this attractive and inexpensive collection was something else I’ve seldom seen in Romania.
On the actual first day of winter, the lovely snow we’d enjoyed all weekend was rained away –- but a Christmas celebration at my school kept holiday spirits high. One of our really well-organized colleagues had guided her 10th graders to present a Power Point show of Christmas traditions from various European countries, complimented by actual performances from the cultures represented by our students: Hungarian, Slovak, and Romanian. Among the joys -- seeing many of my students dressed in sheepskin hats and jackets, or the sparkling embroidered vests and aprons, looking more like Romanians than, well, Americans, as they do at school.
That evening, the mayor’s office put on another celebration that included 20-odd eight-year olds learning to master traditional dances, all dressed in embroidery and lambskin. Their big brothers and sisters offered a highly-gymnastic (and slightly risqué) dance to “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” As usual, I was impressed by the talents displayed – without all the expensive facilities and instruction of American suburbanites, students here can perform on par with them. And, it’s usually American music they choose to sing, play, or dance to.
Social customs and holiday entertaining, however, are strictly Romanian. In the week before Christmas, when I asked my students to say – English sentence, please! – what is special about Christmas, they all mentioned being at home with family. Whereas in the U.S., the holiday season involves various parties at work and among friends, the custom here is to observe the holiday with close family only. Though my school did have a Christmas meal (snitel and potato salad with hot mulled wine) for faculty on the last day of school, inviting friends to one’s home to share the holiday is not a Romanian custom. Part of this might be that homes are small and there are few “living rooms” as we know them – most of the living goes on in the kitchen – but the reasons are more rooted in the culture than in the architecture.
Many of my fellow volunteers attribute differences in such practices to communism --one needs to be careful what one says after too much polinka – but I’d argue that it goes back much further. Or, perhaps, that Americans are the exception here. We value interaction and cross-fertilization, the stimulation of new ideas and new people – one of the reasons we are fond of cocktail parties. While I have enjoyed many Romanian meals – some for 20 or 30 people – none have involved much milling about; instead, one sits at a table and talks with those one knows. Romanians value the familiar more than the novel, the comfort of family rather than the distraction of something new. It’s both a virtue and a liability.
My Christmas involved both American and Romanian practices. First, an invitation to a friend’s home to make sarmale – stuffed cabbage, labor intensive and de riguer for a holiday meal -- plus salata de boeuf (no beef, but peas and carrots and homemade mayonnaise), and one of the layer cakes Romanians are masters of (thin layers of cake, filled with cheese, cream, and jam). Then a Christmas Eve with my Romanian friends who lived in the U.S. for several years – and they were delighted to include in the invitation my fellow volunteer, along with her visiting husband and son. We ate, we talked, we walked – the polinka and a tour of a neighborhood biserica that’s being decorated by its talented priest were the chief elements that differentiated it from a holiday we might observe at home.
On Christmas Day itself, sans children to tend to, I slept late, until joining my Romanian friends for more talking and eating and walking. On the way home, we stopped at a relative’s home, where we were of course offered more polinka and wine, but then found ourselves involved in yet another bit of Americana. “Monopoly” has come to Romania (Piata Unirii, Boulevardul Regele Carol, etc.) and 10-year-old Mihai persuaded my friend and me to join him and his six-year-old cousin in a game.
Given the snail’s pace at which I can read Romanian and my friend’s reading glasses left at home, it was obvious the two boys would best us – a delight to watch them play. Though our adult conversations had involved whether Romanians could become competitive and organized enough to haul the nation out of its economic problems, the talent with which these boys went at acquiring property, collecting rents, and calculating how much they could afford gave me hope for Romania’s future prosperity.
Sărbători fericite şi la mulţi ani to all!
Happy Holidays and a very good New Year for you too, Connie!
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