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Reflections on the differences between celebrating Christmas in Hungary versus in America.

What have we learned as expats about celebrating Christmas in Hungary versus in America? What fun things about Hungarian Christmas have you started to incorporate into your own experience, if any? Well, here are a few differences between spending Christmas in Hungary versus America.  Christmas starts for both Hungarians and Americans around the same time.  For Americans, Christmas begins sometimes in November when the Christmas decorations start getting put out at all the stores from the supermarket to the dry cleaners, the buzz of Christmas starts to fill the air. Hungarians begin thinking Christmas the first Sunday after November the 30th, with the start of Advent.

Christmas decorations

In Hungary, as far as decorations go, it is common to see Advent wreaths out and about that have four candles on them and every Sunday Hungarians light one candle until Christmas. Advent calendars are also popular in Hungary, probably more so than in the States although many people do use them too, particularly in families with children. Pulling back a window on the calendar every day is exciting, especially for children. Another big difference between Americans celebrating Christmas and Hungarians is that Americans light up the outside of their houses and shops in great splendor while Hungarians reserve their decorations for indoors. A common American pastime is to get in the car and drive around neighborhoods comparing Christmas lights from house to house, not a practice that predominates in Hungary, especially when this year many of the poor are actually burning hay in their houses to keep warm because they can’t afford firewood, so if you are in Hungary, forget the mechanical Santa and his elves lighting up past American lawns, it's a thing of the past.

Santa vs. Mikulás

Another difference between Christmas in Hungary and America is this concept called ‘Santa’. Santa isn’t called ‘Santa’ in
Hungary, he’s called Mikulás, and he doesn’t come on Christmas, per se, but on the 6th instead of the 25th of December. This day is referred to as ‘Mikulás Nap’ or St. Nicholas Day. Hungarian’s refer to Mikulás as ‘Mikulás bácsi’ or ‘Uncle Nicholas’ and he does not come from the North Pole but is a past saint of the poor. In America, Santa has to do with Christmas; Santa’s the all knowing bearer of gifts for the world at Christmastime while in Hungary he does only a small amount of giving and on a different day entirely. Besides that, Mikulás puts his treats not in stockings or under trees, but in newly polished shoes. In Hungary, Mikulás puts chocolates, tangerines, and a few toys in the shoes of ‘good’ Hungarian children who have polished their shoes and left them on the window sill over night. Hopefully, if you’ve been a good Hungarian child you will not find a bundle of birch branches in your shoes indicating that you deserve a good, old-fashioned swat to the tush. Worse yet, Mikulás may be accompanied by the Devil who does his bidding for him and is in charge of all such punishment while American children fear, at the worst, a lump of coal from inside their stocking. The Mikulás devil is called the ‘Krampusz’ and is a mean goblin sometimes in the form of a boy. For Hungarians, however, it isn’t Santa and his sleigh that children can hear on their roof tops on Christmas Eve, no, for Hungarian children, baby Jesus and the angels bring the gifts in some mysterious manner when they aren’t looking. Early on in the month, American children write a Christmas list to Santa and often send it to the North Pole where Santa supposedly lives. Hungarian children write a list too, but not until the 24th of December and they write it instead to ‘Jezuska’ or ‘Jesus’ asking for what presents they want most.
 

Hungarian Christmas Folklore

The next part to the Christmas holidays for Hungarians is the 13th of December, otherwise known as ‘Luca Nap’ or ‘Lucia Day’ and is a traditional night for evil spirits since it is the longest night of the year, the same cannot be said for Americans,
they do not practice this nor do they partake in any such Hungarian folk traditions. One was that once men would bring their ‘luca stool’, a small wooden stool with 3 legs to finish their work on Christmas Eve at midnight church services. The stool
was also used for men to stand on at church to look at the people in the congregation to see if there were any witches in
the fold. If so, the men would scatter poppy seeds or millet on their way home so the witches would get distracted by the
food and forget about pursuing them. So, while folk tradition tells that men were busy sorting out the witches in their churches from real women, those same girls were of course, looking for, what else?—their future 'superstitious' husbands. The old tradition goes like this; the unmarried girls in the church would take 12 slips of paper, write 11 boys’ names down and leave 1 empty. The girl would then roll up all the slips and place them in a box, and pull one out and burn it without looking until the 24th night. When on the eve of the 24th she opened and looked at the last slip of paper and the paper was empty, it became clear, she may never marry, or the slip would reveal a future husband’s name. Other traditions remain and the day still holds preeminence for superstitions related to weather, wealth and money. For instance, don’t spend a cent on the 13th, but if someone gives you money you will become wealthy.

Christmas Eve

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