Christmas time in Prague

Christmas time is here!

Personally, winter time in Prague is one of my favorite times. Prague radiates Christmas spirt.

Every year I do everything I possibly can to obtain true & happy Christmas spirt. I'll decorate like crazy, put lights everywhere, bake Christmas cookies, and listen to holiday music... Here, I don't have to try. Everything is so naturally beautiful and glowing with Christmas! Perhaps this is due to many things. Let me make a list:

1. Beautiful huge Christmas trees in nearly all city squares.

2. Christmas stands around every corner.

3. Snow.

4. Grog.

5. Vánoční cukroví (Traditional Czech Christmas cookies)

6. Christmas stretches over December 25 and 26. (Christmas Feast (Boží hod vánoční) and St. Stephen's Day (Sv. Štěpán)

7. Saint Nicholas Day (Mikuláš).

8. Svařák, Hot wine.

9. Delicious baked/roasted chestnuts or roasted almonds in cinnamon sugar.

10. Strudl.

11. Jezisek (baby Jesus) delivers gifts!

12. School break.

13. New Years is approaching.

I'm sure there are many things that I'm missing. All I know is that this is one of the best times

of the year.

Today I decided to make some more cookies. About a week ago I made chocolate chip cookies with Eric and Nicole. They were very excited because nobody here ever makes them. I even had to search around for brown sugar because there is none here! Czech don't use brown sugar at all in their baking. When I asked about it, they all thought I meant

natural raw cane sugar. Today I made sugar cookies with a glazed frosting with crushed candy cane on top. I'm not gonna lie, it turned out perfect & delicious! What's different about these cookies for Czechs is that they have the candy canes on top. Here in Czech, there are no peppermint candy canes! So this is my little specialty (*of course only abroad*). I also made little baggies for

Christmas gifts.

I was going to go the foreign police to register where I'm living today, but that didn't happen because I was missing some papers. So now I must wait 5 days because Czechs take off two days before Christmas, Christmas day, plus the day after... I believe. I swear, Czechs LOVE their holidays. I'm defiantly not complaining though.

Lenka (family friend) came over a couple of days ago and was nice enough to gift me Mistletoe! Here it is a larger grouping of mistletoe which is hung somewhere in the room and has two main purposes. The main one being that it is a gift of good luck from a friend. The second reason of course, is that a man may choose to kiss whoever is underneath it. Honestly I had no idea that it was mistletoe because they paint them here in silver or gold, and when I asked about them, everyone told me that it the main reason was for luck. I've attach a photo of mine!

In the photo you can also see my calender with Krteček on it. Also another very yummy Christmasy thing is the Božkov Vaječný liker, I put it in my coffee and it's a very good

'pick-me-up'.

Tomorrow, I think we are going to have a dinner with Vashek (my uncle). I'm excited because it will be the start of Christmas feasting! I will make sure to eat small potions so I don't get sick. I guess for Christmas Eve there will be Karp & Karp soup, plus all the other traditional Czech dishes.

I think that this Christmas season would be complete if I could see my family and friends. Mostly I wish David didn't have to leave for this Christmas! Hopefully he will be able to be here next Christmas. We are still working on how to make sure he can stay next time he comes over.

Veselé vánoce a šťastný nový rok!