Sara's Travel Blog: Monastery & Serbian Christmas

Today, January 7th, is when Serbians celebrate Christmas. The traditions are at midnight two nights before Christmas, one of the men in the family will go out and cut down small oak trees (one for each male head in the house and one extra one for New Years) to place them at the house for the night before Christmas. They put part of the oak trees (small branches and leaves) on the front of their vehicles for good luck and then the night before Christmas, they cut down (cut into pieces) and burn a tree for each male head in the household. We had to cut and burn four oak trees for Mihailo, Alek, Jagos, and Rale and they always have one extra that they keep until New Years to burn it the night before New Years to bring luck in the New Year. On the day of Christmas, the kids get to open presents and then later on there is a big feast cooked by the mother or grandmother of the house.

A little tidbit: Because Jan and Jagos' kids are half Serbian and half American, they celebrate their Christmases a little differently. On their Serbian Christmas, just their grandmother and uncle give them presents, where as before (American Christmas) they got their presents from Jan's family and their parents. And then on New Years, they get and give presents to and from family friends. It is really cool how they get to experience all the different holidays to stay in touch with both of their heritages.

During lunch, they have a special bread that the kids have to choose a piece of. If they find the coin in the bread, then they have good luck for the following year. Also on the day of Christmas, Serbians will visit their church or Monasteries. Today we went to the Monastery Moraca (Mor-a-cha) where Jagos' brother, Rale, was baptized. It was a beautiful monastery and you can tell is has been around for a LONG time!