Holidays in Hungary

New year? Time for a blog post! I had a wonderful holiday season in Hungary. The holidays are a little different, though, especially Christmas. Santa Clause, called Mikulas (Mee-koo-losh) in Hungarian, visits the children on December 6^th. He leaves gifts like chocolate in the shoes of the kids for them to find in the morning, kind of like the stockings we have in America. On the 6^th of December, I was in Győr, in northern Hungary with the other exchange students. We had a great time playing laser tag, ice skating, and touring the Audi factory. Győr was a beautiful city and it became one of my favorite cities in Hungary in only one weekend.

The town hall

I came home and felt that something was missing. In Hungary, they usually don’t get a Christmas tree until Christmas Eve and it comes down January first. When I told my family about how early we usually put up the tree, they were surprised. One day, around the 15^th, I came home from school and there was a Christmas tree! I helped decorate it with my host mom and the whole time, I was so grateful to have a host family that would get a tree early for their exchange student.

Christmas lasts for three days here in Hungary. Usually, Christmas Eve is for decorating the tree and preparing any cooking things for the next day. Christmas day is when gifts are exchanged within the immediate family and the day after Christmas is for visiting with relatives. Our Christmas wasn’t the usual, however because there was a huge party on Christmas day. So, we just did everything on Christmas Eve. We visited with family in the morning until the late afternoon and came home to exchange gifts. I got a super cozy sweatshirt.

It was snowing!

I didn’t want to hang around for the giant party, so I visited an exchange student friend a few hours away. We made cookies and pancakes together. It was so much fun to just hang out and make some American food.

Thanks Cecilia!

Haha, we decided to make a waffle cookie with the last of the dough

For New Years, there was another big party, but this time, I stuck around. There were fireworks and dancing and by then, I was super tired so I went to bed.

This is the last day before we all go back to school, but it was an amazing break, full of culture and learning. Happy Holidays everyone!

-Alina