I forgot how I got to this page, but I might as well add. Rolling back over religious arguments to religious tradition. Not sure if I ever wrote about this, but I want to stick it *somewhere* at least.
In my country they say "Bolje da umre selo nego običaji". "Better that the village die than the traditions". In our case, the villages are a gentle shove away from being one with dirt.
Like BalkanRenegades, we Croats have a similar thing. Except Austrian/German. Which can be said about most things of ours. It's Kirchweih, or kirvaj/kirbaj in Croatian.
Unlike Slava it is on the level of a village rather than a family. Every village/town has a patron saint, and during the patron saint's day (every day is assigned to SOME saint(s) in Catholicism), there is a mass, licitari. Lebzelters. They traditionally sell decorated honeycakes, but nowadays they're gypsies that sell anything and everything. Including... decidedly unchristian imagery... A street fair and funfair combined. And an excellent place for young Sciller to buy BB guns.
And, of course, every house in the village holds a feast. Traditionally. In our village? Only about 3 houses hold a true invite-everyone-over feast. The rest keep an intimate reception if they celebrate at all.
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Far as Christmas goes, it lasts exactly from Christmas Eve when all decorations are put up to Three Kings' Day when they're put down. That means shot in the head for the euphemistically uninclined.
We have a strange tradition that no one else seems to have. Might be a farmer's tradition, might be Czechoslovak, might be old Slavonian (Croatian). We bake bread with whole cloves of garlic stuck in (several heads are used). They are then cut up into cubes, about 2 centimetres long. A glass of holy water is taken and a branch from the Christmas tree used to throw it. And a candle in a cup of wheat grain.
Then we walk in a line, the candlebearer at the front illuminating the way, then behind him someone throwing the bread at the chickens and pigs and cows and dog(s :\) and one blessing the animals and farm machinery with the holy water. Then the rest. Everyone prays in a cycle. Paternoster, Ave maria, Gloria Patri, Paternoster etc. We make a circle around the farm as so.
Then, upon return, we pray twice more, once "normally", once for the deceased. Then the oldest person in the family dips their thumb in honey and forms a cross on everyone's forehead which is not washed off. Then we eat. Eggdrop soup, roast carp, potato salad and pupački (Pupačky. A Slovak thing. All my ancestors were Czechs and Slovaks.) for dessert.
Then we decorate the tree. Definitely a nativity scene under the tree. Then do whatever. Midnight mass. Next several morning a general mass of food as you sigh and poke yet another hole in the ol' belt. But you wouldn't dare insult dear grandmama, would you?
We would get candy and toys as kids. My parents would get nuts and old people candy thrown into hay under the Christmas tree. These days we get drunk.
