Christmas in My Family

When it comes to Christmas, what more can we say…Of course if it is the most be loved holiday of the year, a celebration of hope, understanding, sharing and the list remains open. Let’s forget about the “materialist” face of Christmas, about worries concerning the presents and think only of the pure joy of spending the short time with the dearest one. In my family, the Christmas “fever” starts a week before.The first days are reserved for buying the gifts, carefully chosen for each member of the family.
The next days, my mother is busy with preparing the Christmas dinner. The main kind of meat served during this meal is pork. A Romanian tradition is to sacrifice the pig on Saint Ignat’s day, and we respect it, than we make sausages and put some pieces to smoke. Before Christmas Eve, my mother cooks pork aspic, cabbage rolls, we call them “sarmale” and puts the sausages and steaks into the oven.After these come the sweets: sponge cakes with wall nuts, Turkish delights, raisins and the Christmas pie with sweetened cheese and raisins. All this time my father and I choose the “right” fire-tree and beautify the house with lights, artificial snow and other decorations. During the Christmas Eve afternoon, all the family adorn the Christmas tree and we go to church.
In the evening we return home and wait for “Santa” listening Christmas songs (some of them sung by carol singers who wander from one house to another).We love Stefan Hrusca, the most famous Romanian carol singer, and Dean Martin, Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby. In the Christmas morning we open the gifts and we are always surprised and happy. After all this comes the Christmas meal when the entire family gathers round the table enjoying that we are together and celebrating the birth of baby Jesus. Chirita Ciprian Marius Clasa a XI-a A