Czech Christmas

A Czech Christmas means:

1. Cookies in different shapes, sizes, and of course, different kinds. This is sort of like a national obsession especially for women as some of them bake 15 kinds for this occasion.

2. Vanočka or the Christmas bread, which is tradionally baked the night before Christmas.

3. Fasting on Christmas morning for you to see "the golden pig" later. (This one doesn’t apply for everyone though. I don’t know if other families practice this. Ours certainly doesn’t.)

4. Fried carp and potato salad as the traditional Christmas food. If we literally pig out (yup, because we eat roasted pig) in P.I., here it’s completely the opposite. Everybody tones down their daily diet of meat and feast on fish instead.

5. For kids, Ježišek or baby Jesus brings gifts instead of Santa. The kids gather in one room. When they hear the bell ringing from the other room, it means baby Jesus already dropped by to give them gifts.

6: And lastly, Christmas is on December 24th here. That means today. If we in P.I. and maybe the rest of the world celebrate it tomorrow, here tomorrow already means boxing day for some.

Have a merry Merry Christmas everyone and cheers to the coming year!