Hunglish.orgSanta travels all over the world at Christmas time, but two places he goes that are quite different in manners and in how they receive him are America and Hungary--an expat knows the difference!
Christmas in Hungary is timed with Advent, a four week span before Christmas and it is during this time that Christmas traditions begin. Santa has Hungary first on his schedule. At this busy time, Santa has to wear a few different hats, depending on where he parks his sleigh. In Hungary, Santa is called ‘Mikulas’ which means ‘Winter Grandfather.’ In America, Santa spends more time in shopping malls surrounded by shoppers and taking pictures with kids instead of at winter festivals in Hungary. In Hungary the pious decorations of Advent wreaths with 4 candles and a few other carefully placed items from Christmas trees to bells adorn homes while Americans steep up their electrical bills with an extreme wattage of lights strung from doorways to windows to roofs to mechanical winter animals in the yard.
During this time until Christmas Eve, Santa has a lot of match making to plan. Santa can find husbandless girls in Hungary cutting off branches from fruit trees, putting them in a vase and hoping for them to bloom to forecast a marriage for themselves in the next year. For spouseless girls in America, singleness isn’t as lonely, or at least, so it seems. In America, most girls don’t dare admit that being alone, even during the holidays, isn’t much else than a personal choice, let alone start hoping for dead winter branches to start budding forth the likelihood of a future husband.
Different Timing
Instead of the 25th of December, Santa arrives to Hungarian children’s houses much earlier, on the morning of the 6th of December. He arrives from the North Pole on a sled pulled by reindeer just as in the States, so Santa doesn’t have to worry about swapping his sleigh in for any other form of transport, although sometimes his reindeer wouldn’t mind a pit stop with some free grazing time in between. For Hungarian children Santa does make one stop on the way. He picks up 2 devils dressed in black and with red horns and a tail just in case he needs to punish any bad children—yikes!
Christmas trees, Jesus and presents
For Hungarian children, receiving their Christmas tree is much more mystical than trekking out to one of many parking lots in America to pick a tree and then to strap it onto your car with bungee cords and rope. For Hungarians, Jesus and the angels deliver the tree while the kids go out to the movies or to a relative’s house so the scene can be set up for them once they arrive home. For American children, the magic of Christmas is more tied up with Santa, and in that respect, Santa’s a little jealous that Jesus and the angels have stolen away a little bit of his thunder in Hungary (that's why he has the devils there). Unlike American children whose only preparations for Santa’s arrival include setting out cookies and milk, Hungarian youngsters have a little more work to do: they have to polish their boots and shoes and put them out on their window sills on the evening of the 5th for Santa. While Santa fills stockings in the US, he has to change modes while in Hungary to shoes, sometimes he makes a mistake while a few American kids scratch their heads as to why they have candy in their shoes. While children in the US fear coal in their stockings, children in Hungary fear getting a bunch of birch branches painted in gold in their shoes! Of course, the branches mean a spanking, a little more ominous indeed, but then, the devils are too! Both cultures write letters to Santa but while American children send their letters by post, Hungarian children put their letters on the window in the evening and find them gone by morning! Still, the wishes of children remain the same, whether Santa puts toys and/or candy in stockings or shoes—Hungarian or American, Santa is still the bearer of good tidings at Christmastime, the world over.
Written by Natalie Jaro