Christmas traditions

It's strange for me since it's only the very first week of December, but it feels like Christmas already. In Spain, the holidays are rather late comparing to the rest of Europe, since we start on the 24th for Christmas Eve and then it takes until the 6th of January, the morning when the Magic Three Kings come to visit us for the presents. In some families, like mine, there are gifts both for Christmas and for the Three Kings -dividing the presents harvesting in two days for paternal and maternal families -I'm a lucky one!

However, I've been noticing that people here have different traditions. Already two weekends ago the Christmas Market -or Vianoce trhy- was launched, which implies lots of people visiting in the evening looking for some hot wine -hot red wine with spices-, or some punch -fruit juices together with some pieces and, of course, rum or some other liquor.

Anyway, hot alcoholic beverages is not the only attractive thing in these places. A quite suggestive smell spreads from the small stands, coming from both salty and sweet meals. Very typical are the ciganska -kind of a hamburger with cooked onions- and tdrlnik -a bakery roll with sugar ans sweet spices. We went last Tuesday, after a promo-team meeting, Sarah, Olga and me to try out some hot wine and made some friends -quite quickly, haha.

I've been making some research with my colleagues and they explained me that tonight St. Mikulas  is coming -that's why tomorrow we're going to Integra and Presporkovo to give some gifts-, and then on the 24th it is Jezisko who is bringing more gifts. Jezisko, if you translate it literally, would be kind of a new-born Jesus, bringing gifts -aha, makes a lot of sense. I guess depending on the family you'll have one or the other or both. Also my colleagues warned me about cleaning today my shoes, since Mikulas will put sweet in there if I've been a good girl or onions, for example, if I've misbehaved.

In any case, it's cold, the shopping centres and Christmas markets -that we don't have in Spain, btw- are full and it could start snowing in any moment -it would be good to see some snow before coming back to Spain, but you know, not too much :D

Coming back to the International Day of Volunteering that will soon conclude in Korean Tea-Meeting.

More hugs^^