CHRISTMAS IN LATVIA

Rīgas 22. vsk

Christmas time starts with Advent. Children together with their parents make an Advent wreath. It is usually made of conifer branches, moss, cones, dried flowers, orange slices, ribbons, beads and other things of their creative imagination. Four candles are put in the wreath and lighted up one by one on four Advent Sundays.

Advent time is full of wonderful and soulful concerts in concert halls and churches around Latvia. Many of Latvia’s best known musicians, actors, actresses perform original Latvian Christmas songs and international melodies.

Christmas time is popular with Christmas markets around Latvia. The Grand Christmas Market and the tree are on the Dome

Square in the Old town in Riga. The Christmas Market is popular with locals as well as tourists visiting Riga. Every visitor has a chance to get familiar with variety of Latvian products and handicrafts: wooden toys, hand-made Christmas decorations, candles, basketry, woolen sweaters, socks, gloves, sheepskin, linen fabrics as well as painted silk, glassware and many others.

People start preparing for Christmas in time.

Tidying up the living space is one of the tasks that Latvians are encouraged to do to make everything around a bit cleaner.

It is also expected to have the home decorated with traditional decors, not with what you can usually buy in the shopping center.

Small branches and fir-cones are some of them. If nature is not really your place to be, it’s interesting to have ornaments or anything else you can make with your own hands.

Another characteristic and old Christmas tradition is dragging the Yule log. Usually it is the log of an oak tree. This is explained as the symbolic collecting and burning of last year's problems and misfortunes. The Yule log was either dragged by the people of one farmstead or several neighbors together. This was accompanied by songs, singing games, and various sounding instruments. If people from different farmsteads came together, then it was burned in the last farmstead.

Ancient Latvians dedicated lots of time

to fortunetelling. Christmas Eve was

not an exception.

The Latvians also liked to bewitch luck

– a proverb says that a lot of money will

come to you if a black cat is carried

around the church on Christmas Eve.

One frequently used fortune-telling

method involves ladling molten lead or

wax into a pail of icy water and reading

the twisted shapes as signs of future

events.

Family dinner at Christmas Eve is a very important event during Christmas. The most popular Latvian Christmas dish is boiled grey peas with the souce of fried meat and

onions. Usually eaten accompanied by a drink – curdled or cultured milk. All of the peas must be eaten by the morning to avoid tears in the new year.

A traditional dish is also boiled pigs head with boiled pearl barley. Usually we make bacon rolls with fatty bacon and onion. Today one of the most popular Christmas meals is roast pork with stewed sauerkraut. A modern festive table also often includes carp, and fish scales are placed in pockets and purses, so

that the new year brings a lot of money. According to Latvian tradition you should eat nine meals at Christmas for the coming year to be rich, although today this ritual is performed only rarely.

In the last 100 years it has also become popular to bake gingerbread at Christmas. All kids like making them.

Christmas dinner is usually

followed by coming of Father

Christmas (Ziemassvētku vecītis)

who brings to house or leaves a

sack full of presents. But it is not

so easy to get them. In order to get

a present you have to recite a

poem, sing a song, dance or even

play a musical instrument while

standing next to the Christmas

tree. So, kids before Christmas are

really learning by heart a lot of

poems and songs.

PRIECĪGUS ZIEMASSVĒTKUS !