St’astny Novy Rok! Happy New Year! I think it will be. I admit that Christmas was very hard for me – I spent 2 days in tears. I not only missed my family terribly, I also missed my Christmas. Hardly any candles, no Joy to the World, hardly any familiar Christmas carols (save Silent Night, which seems to be fairly universal, as I have heard from other volunteers in different countries that they also sang Silent Night). Once again, I was caught by the fact that these people look similar to me and have some similar traditions, so I forgot (in my heart, not my head) that of course their celebration of this blessed time of year would be different from mine. Despite missing my own traditions, my Slovak Christmas was still very beautiful. The church was complete with two large Christmas trees by the altar decorated in white ornaments, a manger scene by the pulpit, and a brass band, organ, choir, and American oboist (me!). Though I couldn’t understand most of the service, it was clearly Christmas.
I had a nice dinner with my host family and the pastor, and then “Jezisko†came (Little Jesus comes instead of Santa), so we went to the living room, sat around the tree, and the showering of gifts began. My host family gave me a pair of wonderfully warm slippers (so Slovak!) and a Slovak hymnal – two gifts that couldn’t have been more perfect. My parents also came through with a perfect gift, though I told them not to send me anything. They put together a little photo album of pictures from home (my house, my church, my schools, family and friends), which in turn made me burst into tears, and, through the tears, I promptly shared the album with everyone in the room and have shown it to many people since. (One friend, upon seeing my hometown in CA, grabbed my arm and said, “Can I come visit you??†Yes!) Later that evening, I got a phone call from home (and more in the next few days), which was a perfect end to Christmas Eve. But Christmas was far from over! In Slovakia, there is Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Second Christmas Day (Boxing Day), and all three of these days are for spending time at home with family, or visiting other family members (as well as church every day). On the 26th, the extended family came – two sons and wives and three grandkids. Jezisko came again, and I had to smile as I watched the kids’ sideways glances at the tree and their poorly contained excitement at what awaited them. It made me remember my own kid-days. As Christmas has persisted (now approaching day 12!), I have enjoyed a blizzard that dumped at least 2 feet of snow on Vrbovce, a lot of reading and writing, and a New Years’ Eve celebrated much like the US, but with the addition of lots of kids in the town square with fireworks they had received for Christmas. Quite festive, albeit also loud and ultimately smelly and dirty. Now, after too short a time to relax, we are back in school, and back to the regular routine.