My Christmas Tree

  

Photo: Ileana Johnson

As long as I can remember, my Dad came home every December with a scraggly blue spruce, fragrant with the scent of winter, tiny icicles hanging from the branches. The frozen miniature crystal daggers would melt quickly on Mom’s well-scrubbed parquet floor. I never knew nor asked where he had found it, or how he could afford it. His modest salary of $70 a month barely covered the rent, utilities, and food. Mom had to work as well to afford our clothes. Prices were subsidized by the government and salaries were very low for everybody regardless of education and skill. We had to make do with very little.

No matter how bare the branches of my Christmas tree were, it was magical to me. Two metal bars forged by hand helped Dad nail the tree to the floor at the foot of the couch where I slept in the living room that doubled as my bedroom. Our tiny apartment only had one bedroom where my parents slept.

Decorating it was a fun job every year since I made new decorations from colorful crepe paper. We had to be creative; we could not afford glass ornaments. We made paper cones covered with craftily rolled crepe paper and filled with candy. I hung small apples with red string, tiny pretzels, home-made butter cookies, candied fruit, raisins, and an occasional orange wrapped in tissue paper with strange lettering, coming all the way from Israel. Each year we bought 12 small red and green candles which we attached to the tree with small metal clips. We were careful to clamp them at the tip of the branch to keep the tree from catching fire when the candles were lit. The tree would live for two weeks before the prickly needles fell all over the living room floor.

Photo: Ileana Johnson

 

One year I spent Christmas with uncle Ion and his wife. A gifted mechanical engineer, Ion could fix and build anything. He promised that he would fashion lights for his Christmas tree. He worked painstakingly for weeks, soldering tiny copper wires into bundles that stretched along the branches of the tree like a magical cascade to which he soldered at least 200 tiny bulbs sold as bike lights. It was a labor of love! When the wires were finally attached to a relay, the bulbs lit up like a waterfall. Nobody had such a fantastically blazing tree in the whole country. I was amazed at his dedication and craftiness and never forgot his fairytale Christmas fir.

We did not have a tree skirt but we used one of Mom’s hand-stitched table cloths. The whole apartment smelled like the fragrant mountains and, for a couple of weeks we forgot the misery that surrounded us. We lit up the 12 candles on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day.

Every night for two weeks, I would admire my enchanted tree until I fell asleep, wondering what special treat I would find under my pillow on Christmas morning. It was never much, but it was such a cherished joy!

Photo: Ileana Johnson

 

Saint Nicholas Day was celebrated on December 6^th. We really didn’t know much about the real St. Nicholas, Santa Claus’s namesake. St. Nicholas was a popular saint in the Orthodox Church and presumed the bishop of Myra in Turkey in the 300s. There were many legends of St. Nicholas - the more famous story that he was the son of a wealthy family in Patara, Lycia. When his parents died, he gave away his fortune. One such random act of kindness involved throwing three bags of gold through the windows of three girls who were going to be forced into prostitution.

On Saint Nicholas Day, I would put my boots outside the door, hoping that they would be filled with candy in the morning and not coals. Grandpa had a wicked sense of humor – he would sometimes fill one boot with sticks and another with candy and a chocolate bar.

Grandpa never bought a blue spruce - we cut a fir tree from the woods. We were careful not to cut down a tree that had bird nests in it. We decorated it with garland made from shiny and multi-colored construction paper. We cut strips, glued them in an interlocking pattern and voila, we had our garland. For ornaments we used walnuts and shriveled apples from his cellar, tied with Grandma’s red knitting wool.

The warm adobe style fireplace built from mud bricks mixed with straw cast a dancing glow on the tree decked with  tokens of food, something our heathen Roman ancestors did during the celebration of Saturnalia. On December 17, the polytheistic Romans celebrated Saturnus, the god of seed and sowing, for an entire week. As Christians, we celebrated the birth of Christ and the religious traditions in our Orthodox faith, in spite of the communist regime forcing the transformation of Christmas into a secular holiday.

On Christmas Eve, after we ate Mom’s traditional Christmas supper, roasted pork, baked chicken, sarmale (stuffed cabbage rolls with ground meat and rice), and mamaliga (corn mush with butter cooked in a cast iron pot), we went to the midnight service at the Orthodox Church not far from our house. Sometimes it was a sloshy trek and other times it was icy and slippery. If we got lucky, a heavy snow would turn our walk into a winter wonderland with dancing snowflakes shining in the weak street lights. We had to bundle up well – the church was not heated and we circled it three times during the procession with burning candles in our hands. I always wore my flannel pajamas under many layers of warm clothes. To this day, pajamas are my favorite garment – cozy and comfortable, keeping my body warm.

I decorate my Douglas fir with beautiful lights and shiny ornaments now. My heart fills with loving memories of Christmases past and of family members lost who made our Christian traditions so special.

Christmas, the Season of Faith, Family, and Charity

Caroling in Romania, 1841 Photo: Wikipedia

Christmas was my Dad bringing home proudly a scraggly fir with sparse branches - fragrant with the smell of winter, tiny icicles hanging from the branches, miniature crystal daggers, melting on my mom’s well-scrubbed parquet floor. I never knew nor asked how he could afford it from his $70 a month salary that barely covered the communist subsidized rent, utilities, and food. No matter how bare the branches of my Christmas tree were, it was magical to me.

We decorated it together with home-made paper baskets filled with hard candy, raisins, and small butter cookies, crepe paper garlands, small pretzels, an orange wrapped in fine tissue paper coming all the way from Israel, a few apples dangling from a string, and 12 red and green 3-inch candles clipped carefully away from overhanging branches that could catch on fire.

Mom’s hand-stitched table cloth made a convenient tree skirt. Two metal bars forged by hand helped Dad nail the tree to the floor at the foot of the couch where I slept in the living room that doubled as my bedroom.

I fell asleep and woke up every morning setting my eyes on the scented tree. It lasted two enchanted weeks before the dried needles fell all over the floor.

Christmas was lighting one of the 12 candles for a few minutes every night, careful not to set the tree on fire, basking in the soft glow while Daddy’s twinkly eyes were beaming with pride that he made his family happy once more. We were rich with love and God’s blessings.

Christmas was standing in shorter lines for freshly baked bread, butter, milk, cooking oil, flour, sugar, and the small pork roast mom always baked in the gas oven. Grandpa’s homemade smoked sausages with pretzels toasted on the stove top were always on the menu. Grandpa used to joke that life was so spectacularly good, even the dogs ran around with pretzels on their tails. Pretzels were sold by big bags, hard and stale, but toasting them on the stove made them taste just baked.

Christmas was Daddy opening the ceremonial bottle of red wine freshly brewed that year by cousin Mircea from Grandma Elizabeta’s vineyard grapes.

Christmas were the village carolers in hand-sewn folk costumes coming door to door, trudging through 3 ft. of snow, pulling a plough decorated with a real fir tree, singing traditional songs and snapping their whips in spite of the Communist Party moratorium, forbidding the observance of such religious traditions.

Christmas was sneaking at midnight to the village Orthodox Church with aunt Leana, the singing deacon, lighting candles and praying, surrounding the building when the crowd overflowed its tiny confines into the yard and the cemetery. The cold chilled us to the bone but the inside eventually warmed from our bodies, the candles, and the excitement of prayers and closeness to God.

Christmas was eating with my Mom and Dad, feeling full, happy, and loved in our tiny apartment, sometimes sharing meals with family members who had traveled far to be with us. The spare wool comforter aunt Nicuta had woven, a blanket, and set of sheets painstakingly hand washed would make cozy beds on the floor for the tired traveler – no fire place to light up, just the coils of steam heat which the government generously made sufficiently hot during Christmas to make up for the cold misery during the winter.

Christmas was peering in the shop windows at the glass ornaments we could not afford but I wished I had. They were made in Poland, whimsical fairy tale characters, no religious symbols of any kind, they were “verboten.”

Every Christmas I longed to have the same doll in the window at Omnia department store, dressed with miniature detailed  clothes, real curly hair, blue eyes, and eyelashes. I never asked my Dad because Mom said it cost three months of his salary. I still had my raggedy cloth doll aunt Stella, the village seamstress, had made for me when I was two years old. When my first child was born, Dad mailed her a large doll similar to the one I had longed for. The doll was so big, it stayed in a corner untouched. My spoiled children had too many other toys to play with and never appreciated the sacrifice their Granddad had made in sending such a gift of love.

On Saint Nicholas Day, December 6, I would put my boots outside the door, hoping that they would be filled with candy in the morning and not coals. Grandpa had a wicked sense of humor – he would sometimes fill one boot with switches and another with candy and a chocolate bar. Chocolate was always in short supply and hard to find.

Grandpa never bought a blue spruce - we cut a fir tree from the woods. We were careful not to cut down a tree that had bird nests in it. We decorated it with garlands made from shiny and multi-colored construction paper. We cut strips, glued them in an interlocking pattern and voila, we had our garland. For ornaments we used walnuts and shriveled apples from his cellar, tied with Grandma’s red knitting wool.

The warm adobe style fireplace built from mud bricks mixed with straw cast a dancing glow on the tree decked with  tokens of food, something our heathen Roman ancestors did during the celebration of Saturnalia. On December 17, the polytheistic Romans celebrated Saturnus, the god of seed and sowing, for an entire week. As Christians, we celebrated the birth of Christ and the religious traditions in our Orthodox faith, in spite of the communist regime forcing the transformation of Christmas into a secular holiday.

On Christmas Eve, after we ate Grandma’s traditional Christmas supper, roasted pork, sarmale (stuffed cabbage rolls with ground meat and rice), and mamaliga (corn mush with butter cooked in a cast iron pot), we went to the midnight service at the Orthodox Church not far from her house. Sometimes it was a sloshy trek and other times it was icy and slippery. If we got lucky, a heavy snow would turn our walk into a winter wonderland with dancing snowflakes shining in the weak street lights. We had to bundle up well – the church was not heated and we circled it three times during the procession with burning candles in our hands. I always wore my flannel pajamas under many layers of warm clothes. To this day, pajamas are my favorite garment – cozy and comfortable, keeping my body warm.

When my children were born, Christmas became a tradition of toys and happiness seen through squeals of innocence and twinkly eyes when unwrapping a favorite game, book, toy, stuffed animal, or bike. I taught my children to be charitable and to share with other children who were less fortunate than we.

I decorate my Douglas fir with beautiful lights and shiny ornaments now. My heart fills with loving and longing memories of glowing Christmases past and of family members lost who made our Christian traditions so special.

I hope and pray that American Christmas traditions will be passed on to future generations to light up the season of faith, family, and charity.

 

Universal Day of the Romanian Blouse

On a sunny and breezy June 24, 2017, a group of over 100 Romanians from states and suburbs surrounding Washington, D.C., have gathered in front of the State Capitol’s reflecting pool to pose for a group picture in celebration of the Universal Day of the Romanian Blouse called “ie,” a hand-woven and hand-sewn artisanal blouse. Women from the three regions of Romania, Transylvania, Moldova, and Wallachia, have sewn these intricate works of art for centuries.

The event was organized by Bogdan Banu and the group photo, taken by Ioana Buliga, was posted on La Blouse Roumaine, the website created to celebrate the rich tradition of folkloric designs;  its name was inspired by the Henri Matisse painting, “La Blouse Roumaine.”

June 24 was officially recognized by the Mayor of Washington, D.C. in 2015 as “reaffirmation of Romanian cultural values and traditions, and serving as a bridge to ancestral homeland.”  

According to Banu, June 24 educates the American public about Romanian culture and tradition and “brings awareness that many of the clothes they see and buy are inspired by Romanian folk creations… the ‘peasant blouse,’ the emblematic piece of clothing of the 60’s and 70’s in America, of the Hippie Era, was in fact, a Romanian blouse.”

Banu continued, “Nowadays we see great fashion designers such as Tory Burch or Dior inspired and sometimes exactly copying traditional Romanian clothing. We have therefore used the opportunity provided by this event to draw public attention that these fashion designers have a duty to recognize their source of inspiration, to #givecredit and, above all, to work with traditional craftsmen who are still creating.” https://www.facebook.com/LaBlouseRoumaine10/photos/a.286820234769651.68861.286810884770586/1312488265536171/?type=3&theater

Expensive designers can copy Romanian folkloric costumes such as blouses, coats, vests, pants, skirts, and other garments without attribution, but only a Romanian artisan can create them with originality and unrivaled talent.

A few ladies, who posed for this event, were wearing long-sleeved and short-sleeved “ie,” some new, some sewn more than a hundred years ago. A special “ie,” which belonged in a museum, had been worn for the first time on the day that the Eiffel Tower had opened in Paris. The yellow stains of time were barely visible here and there.

Original skirts, blouses, hats with feathers, and hand-made leather shoes called “opinci” were worn for the photo shoot. A man’s long shirt with red stitching was also on display. One lady told me that she has her own Romanian costume museum in her home in Arlington, Virginia, where she preserves with love all the items she has collected over decades.

The national “ie” is one of many symbols of the rich Romanian culture, passed on from generation to generation, the artistic creation of thousands of talented and anonymous women who could easily spend months toiling on one “ie,” worn for a special occasion and during church services.

Such works of art were passed on to daughters and granddaughters as part of their dowries.  There are men’s and children’s traditional costumes as well. Folkloric dancers dazzle audiences on stage with their skill and beautiful costumes from various regions in Romania.

Queen Maria of Romania was often seen on the grounds of the Bran Castle in Risnov, dressed in a beautiful white “ie” with red and black stitching and the traditional skirt, “fota,” also hand-woven.

I still remember my aunt and my grandma who were intricately weaving yards of white cloth which was then painstakingly sewn to size and cross-stitched or embroidered by hand in beautiful colors chosen according to the region and the taste of the wearer. Not one “ie” was identical to another; they each had a distinct flare that expressed the talent of the creator. The sleeve often had a wish sewn in a bright color by the owner. Only then would the wish come true.

I have my own “ie” gifted to me on my wedding day in 1978 by my parents, several sizes ago. On my subsequent trips to Romania, I’ve always sought an unusual pattern and color and I brought back a new “ie.” I wear them with pride and it makes me feel that a small part of Romania is always close to my heart.

Photo credit: Ioana Buliga, Buliga Photography

 

Why Do We Give Christmas Gifts?

1881 Thomas Nast depiction of Santa Claus
Photo credit: Wikipedia

The Christmas tradition of gift-giving is tied by many to the Wise Men who gave Jesus Frankincense, Gold, and Myrrh. Frankincense was a perfume used in Jewish rituals of worship. Gold was the symbol of Kings, and myrrh was a perfume used on dead bodies.

The historical Saint Nikolaos of Myra was a fourth century Greek Bishop of Lycia. He is said to have given secret gifts of coins to those who left their shoes outside, a practice celebrated on his feast day, St. Nicholas Day on December 6 in the West and December 19 in the East. He is the model for Santa Claus. The patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children, brewers, pawnbrokers, and students, he is revered by Anglicans, Catholics, Lutherans, Orthodox, and by some Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Reformed churches.

Saint Nicholas comes in Europe on December 6. Children put their boots outside the door, polished and presentable, in hopes that St. Nick will fill them with candy, not switches. In some parts of Germany children are “kidnapped” in a jute sack and given a pretend “spanking” for their bad behavior or poor school performance during the year.

On Christmas Eve, French children leave their boots in front of the fireplace, to be filled with gifts of candy, nuts, and small toys hung in the tree by Pere Noel.

Romanian kids find small gifts under their pillows, candy, chocolate, oranges, flannel pajamas, or a small toy brought by Mos Craciun (Old Man Christmas) or Mos Gerila (Old Man Frost), the communists’ version.

The Italian La Befana tradition dates back to 13^th century. A benevolent old woman with magical powers, she travels on her magical broom to bring gifts on January 5, on Epiphany Eve. The custom of Babbo Natale (Santa Claus) has not been around that long in Italy, only since WWII.

La Befana travels throughout Italy in search of Baby Jesus, bringing gifts to children. The three Wise Men had asked her to go with them to find Baby Jesus but Befana refused at first. She changed her mind and tried to find the Three Wise Men in search of Jesus but was not successful.

La Befana goes down chimneys all over Italy to bring “caramele” (candy) or fruit to good children and “carbone” (coal), onions, and garlic to naughty children. Children leave their stockings and shoes out in hopes to find candy on January 6. To appease La Befana, children leave out notes, food, wine, sausages, and even broccoli.

Russian children receive their gifts under the New Year’s tree from Father Frost (Ded Moroz) accompanied by Snow Maiden (Snegurochka). Father Frost carries a staff, wears valenki (felt boots) and travels in a troika (sleigh pulled by three horses). Christmas is celebrated on January 7 because the Russian Orthodox Church lives by the old Julian calendar which is 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar.

Sinterklaas is the Nordic version of the historical Greek bishop and gift-giver of Myra. An 1881 drawing by Thomas Nast solidified the modern image of Santa Claus in our culture, along with Clement Clarke Moore’s poem, “A Visit from St. Nicholas.”

Hanukkah or the “Festival of Lights” is celebrated by Jewish people for eight days in remembrance of their military victory and the miracle of the oil supply for the Temple. Family and friends eat holiday treats, give gifts to children, and play the dreidel game. This year Christmas and Hanukkah overlap for the fourth time in 100 years.

We give gifts for many other reasons at Christmas time. We are obligated by family customs, job duties, commercialism, consumerism, and societal expectations to overwhelm children with the latest toys, gadgets, and games. A few more traditional parents give books, food, and candy.

Compensation for a job well done is an opportunity for gift-giving, thanking a person for their hard work, for the long hours, dedication and exceptional effort all year long. Some gifts are for bravery in the line of duty or selfless sacrifice in saving another human being.

Exhibition is my least favorite reason to give a gift. It is a well-to do person asserting their wealth by giving away vast amounts of money publicly. Some prefer to remain anonymous but most choose the venue of all-out publicity for their generous gifts.

Compassion is the anonymous way of giving to a person you don’t know and cannot ever thank you for their gift, a person in need who has prayed for a miracle to save them from the abject poverty or the difficult situation in their lives. Gift-giving is always more rewarding in such a charitable circumstance.

Appreciation for someone you know or love who has overcome a professional hurdle after years of difficult effort is a wonderful opportunity for a gift. Reminding someone in your life that they matter and you care about them.

Duty is giving thoughtless gifts to family members, a boss, or colleagues, usually re-gifting  unwanted items received in previous years from relatives and colleagues who also felt a sense of duty to send a present to someone they did not care that much about nor did they put much thought into their generosity.

Love is the gift of togetherness, a symbol of the union of two souls who have found each other after years of searching. It is also the gift to beloved family members.

Tradition is the gift on December 6 when children in Europe put out their boots to receive switches or candy from Saint Nicholas.

The guilt of something from the past, the fundamental belief that wealth and good fortune should be shared at Christmas time is gift-giving driven by the need to share.

Giving a gift in the expectation of receiving one in return, a favor for your gift, a quid pro quo of sorts, is buying benevolence and acceptance into a group.

And then there are those Christians who would like to celebrate Christmas but are too poor and oppressed by their totalitarian governments who forbid them faith-based public displays and celebrations. They are just happy to be alive, to enjoy a good meal with their families, to have food, electricity and heat, and to be able to go to church on Christmas Eve.  Those are priceless gifts.
Copyright: Ileana Johnson 2014

 

Leave Your Secularism at the Door

The atheist minority in this country is challenging everything the majority holds dear in their traditions, faith, and beliefs in order to satisfy their agenda of fundamentally changing America in their view of “social justice” promised by the hollow “hope and change.”

Merchants have caved in afraid to say Merry Christmas anymore. We now have Happy Holidays. Nativity scenes, Christmas trees, and decorations seem to offend liberal atheists more and more each year. Frivolous and vindictive lawsuits are filed to remove crosses that have been in place for decades, honoring those who served in the military and gave their lives to our country.

Christmas parties are now holiday parties and start without a prayer – they don’t want to offend anybody.  If liberal atheists are so offended, why not leave your secularism at the door or come to work on Christmas Day and Easter? They are federal holidays designated to celebrate our Christian traditions, the birth of Christ and the resurrection of Christ.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation challenged the two nativities scenes in the public dining rooms of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and caused their swift and immediate removal. If the plastic crèche was so offensive, why isn’t anybody among the 18 soldiers who complained, coming out to tell us why they must be removed?

Bill O’Reilly, in an interview with the Religious Freedom Foundation president debated that “The crèche and the nativity scene just basically portrays what happened on Christmas Day and because it is a federal holiday it seems to be in context, it’s not like you’re making anybody at Guantanamo Bay pray or go to church or say, ‘Hallelujah! I love Jesus.’ It’s a depiction of the federal holiday.”

Weinstein argued that “Christian privilege previously unchallenged <is>being challenged….Christian privilege is now gone and now welcome to the land of equality. You must all share your toys.” When he talks about the “land of equality,” is he talking about the progressive agenda of "social justice?" I thought all Americans were free to practice their faith and could take time off to observe days that are not necessarily sanctioned as a federal holiday. And what “toys” is he talking about?

O’Reilly insisted that Weinstein did not make any sense and called the complaints cowardly. “It was cowardly because this is a depiction of a secular holiday that was signed into law… and if someone’s offended about it, I want to know why and your guys don’t have the courage to stand up and tell me.”

www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/12/20/cut-him-off-hes-a-jerk-oreillys-fiery-exchange-over-guantanamo-nativity-removal/

Weinstein contended that “… your Christian personal rights will always be trumped by the civil rights of your fellow American citizens.” As I said earlier, these employees who are offended by our Christian traditions and holidays and demand their civil rights can go to work on Christmas and Easter.

Liberals argue all the time when it is convenient to their agenda and want to stifle their opponents’ freedom of speech that “we cannot mix church and state.”  I never read that exact statement in our Constitution yet they conveniently use and hide behind the deliberate misinterpretation of the First Amendment to the Constitution that says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; …”   

Phil Robertson was released by A & E from the successful Duck Dynasty show because his honest opinion based on Biblical beliefs outraged the small minority who abusively and vitriolically silence anyone who disagrees with them. The majority must now give in to the minority in order to keep their jobs. The PC police have become the official “controller” and “stifler” of free speech, followed by universities with their “free speech” corners.

Yet the government runs outrageous ads, urging people to enroll in ObamaCare, one with semi-nude men prancing around and dancing in pairs dressed in speedos that leave nothing to the imagination. And this is not offensive to the majority of Americans?

We cannot walk through life with such a degree of sensitivity that we are offended by others with a different point of view, opinion, or belief system. Liberals do not have carte blanche to pick and choose what they deem bigoted and hate speech, especially when they are the biggest offenders at times.

As a wise person said, “If you want ‘change’ in this country, it won’t be achieved by censoring those that don’t want change, it happens from just living your life as you see fit.” You should not impose your value system on others by hiding behind government fiat or the judicial system.

 

Radio Chat with Silvio Canto on U.S. Economy

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cantotalk/2012/12/21/the-us-economy-with-dr-ileana-johnson-paugh

Christmas

All holidays were secular including Christmas. There was not even a hint of pretense that anything about the communist society was Christian or based on a very strong Christian tradition. The only concession to Christianity that mom was allowed to make without going to jail was to have our parish priest come to our home and bless it every Christmas and Easter. He was a very handsome man with deep blue eyes who spoke so many foreign languages that he inspired me to try to be like him. I owe some of my linguistic ability to this very erudite person who could read Latin and Greek with ease.
People did not get the day off at Christmas but celebrated the New Year's Day, a secular, communist sanctioned holiday. Christmas was not about gift giving, it was about togetherness with friends and family, cheer, and good food. It was a one time a year opportunity to eat well, the communist party supplied the stores with more food, the lines were shorter, there was more booze delivered to grocery stores, and an anemic Christmas tree was decorated with lights in some of the larger cities. Some families bought their own blue spruce and decorated it with real candles, apples, cookies, and home made paper ornaments. I remember owning a few real ornaments, given to me by my grandparents. Ornaments were availble but very expensive. Candles were lit with care a few minutes a day to avoid fires. There was no Santa Clause taking photographs with children and generally speaking, Saint Nicholas was someone to be feared. Children left their shoes outside the door on Christmas Eve and, if they behaved properly, Saint Nicholas would leave a chocolate bar and some candy. We did not go to church to pray as many churches were closed. Villagers were luckier because some of their priests opened the modest churches for liturgy on Christmas Day. I have attended church with my aunt Leana on Christmas. She was a cantor and deacon. The village was perched on this remote mountain of salt and because it was so inaccessible, the communists tended to leave it alone. People had small, productive orchards and vineyards because it was not feasable for the communists to take over their land as it was so spread out on top of the mountain. Caroling and donations of food to very poor families with widowed parents were the highlight of Christmas. One tradition observed in most parts of the country, Wallachia, Moldova, and Transylvania was the slaughter of a pig at Christmas. I always refused to watch the slaughter of my grandfather's pig the week before Christmas. I could hear the squeals of pain and saw the blood in the white snow. It always made me squeamish and I could not eat the meat. This pig provided sustenance for the entire extended family for months to come. The meat was smoked into ham, deep fried and preserved in large lard vats, and made into sausages smoked in the attic. Salt was a natural preservative and needless to say, many adults had issues with high blood pressure from so much salt and lard. Some of the meat was cooked fresh on open pits outdoors and the family gathered around the fire to celebrate the abundance of food and the flowing wine. Even small children were handed glasses of ruby red wine, most of it produced on the premises or in the village. I ate many hearty meals cooked on a cast iron top, wood burning stove that channeled hot air to other rooms in the house via primitive mud brick ducts. Villagers bartered things they had in excess with other neighbors since money was so tight. Services were also bartered, one learned to adjust to being poor in so many creative ways. My grandmother and her middle daughter learned to be seamstresses and made dresses. Her youngest daughter was a skilled accountant. Her oldest daughter was a master weaver -she made beautiful fabrics and wool rugs. My own grandmother knew how to spin the coat of a sheep into beautiful yarn, dyed it herself with vegetable dyes and knew how to knit warm and scratchy sweaters. I grew up in grandma's sweaters since my parents could not afford to buy expensive clothes. And they were all expensive when we lived on such meager incomes. My godmother made my dresses. She could take key measurements of my body, and with chalk, make an outline of the various dress pieces on fabric without a pattern, cut them with scissors, and voila, a new, not so trendy dress would emerge. She stitched it together on grandma's 80 year old Singer pedal activated sewing machine. We did not care about fashion, we were glad to have something to keep us covered and warm.
Grown men would go carolling in the village on January 1st to herald the arrival of the New Year. Dressed in traditional costumes, they walked beside a sled pulled by horses. A young green fir decorated with colorful paper ornaments was perched on the sled. Singing and cracking their whips, they demanded pay in food or money from each home. People gave small tokens of their poverty because they believed in sharing as a virtue.
Larger cities had an area reserved for rides for small children and it was the highlight of my year because sometimes the scary Saint Nicholas made his appearance. The children of the ruling elite could actually take their black and white pictures with "Santa."
My parents were my secret Saint Nicholas, they always put a small food item under my pillow - a chocolate bar, a bag of candy, a perfect apple, an exquisite orange from Jerusalem wrapped in fine tissue paper, or a perfect banana from Greece, with their exotic aromas of forbidden and out of reach fruit for mere mortals. I would imagine what would be like to pluck the fruit from its faraway mediterranean location and to bask in the glorious sun as snow and ice was blanketing our surroundings.
Christmas was abundant with snow and gave us kids the opportunity to sled downhill and to have our fathers drag us up and down the street. It was sheer happiness. Our moms would layer our clothes so much, we could hardly move. The key ingredient to staying warm was the flannel pj underneath all the clothes. We played in the snow from the time we woke up until nightfall. By the time we returned home, our clothes were so wet from sledding, ice skating, falling and getting up, that they froze stiff on our bodies. Nobody had hypothermia or lost any limbs to frostbite. We were happy and oblivious to our state in life.