CHRISTMAS AROUND MY WORLD

Christmas is coming and the stress is going high. Among gifts and parties (even in crisis), apparently most of us forget that Christmas is, actually, a religious holiday...For most of the "modern" Christians, it's just another consumer event. The show and lightning included. Apparently, we don't realize how it marked our identity since we were born. Like the Eid for the Muslims, or Hanukkah for the Jewish ...In our childhood memories we all have something about this day. Warm, loving, sometimes sad or even tragic...but it's there...Always related to the ancestral hope that tomorrow will be a better day, that future will bring us a positive change...

In my mind, I don't have only one Christmas. No, I see three...Sometimes, even four. How come, you would say?

You see, I was born Bulgarian Orthodox in a family half very traditional (my father's), and half- not that much. The "not that much" half was full of contradictory members: a) my great-grand mother Tana, one of the first Methodists in the country, b) her daughter-in-law, my maternal grandma, Granny Borka, still alive by the way, with such a blood mixture, that she never understood was she Orthodox or Catholic, Bulgarian, Serbian or Italian, so finally decided to do it her own way i.e. just to party, c) my mom Fanny, a true believer, who wished to do the things really well and provided us with all the love, joy and pieces of traditions she could manage to assemble from her quite peculiar family background.

And I married a Spaniard! So after the enough confused Bulgarian Christmas, I have my Spanish Catholic Christmas.  In Madrid. With the "belens", the typical Christmas carols, the "turron" and the "Misa del Gallo", i.e. the Midnight service on 24 December. And nobody is fasting! In contrast with the Orthodox traditions where the dinner on 24th is entirely vegetarian, because it is the last day of a long fasting, the Spaniards eat lamb cutlets! You should've seen the face of my mother the first 24th December she spent with my Spanish in-laws...

Then, we lived for five years in Sweden. So I also have my Swedish Lutheran Christmas. With the Advent lights, stars, glogg, candles and ... Julbord...

I'll be dedicating to all of them my next entries...

In the meantime....To those who care for it - Happy Christmas preparations...