ROMÉNIA (Iaşi): imagined how Christmas is back home

Sometimes is fun to be an Erasmus student; far away from home, without parents that may ask when you´ll come back home from the party, a lot of new people and friends and I must not forget about the new culture and the experience, as a whole. But sometimes there is the need of something else, something different, something that can remind you of home.

I am from Romania, an almost unknown country for most of the people from the Western Europe. A place where Dracula used to live, where is located the second building in the world, as size, with the merry cemetery, unique in the whole world, the beautiful monasteries and the brilliant people, among them Petrache Poenaru, who invented the first fountain pen or Henri Coandă, the inventor of the first jet aeroplane. A country with warm and friendly people and where usually the holidays have something magic. Especially, the winter holidays seem to have the power to turn back time.

Being here, at thousands kilometres from home, the Christmas was a little bit different but deep down inside my heart I had my own Romanian Christmas.

Usually, before Christmas, on 20th of December (in Romanian, Ignat), each rural family slaughters a pig in a traditional way. And because my family is not a rural one, each year, for preserving the custom, we buy pork meat and we cook all the specific Christmas dishes. I remember staying in kitchen and preparing everything for cârnaţi (spicy sausages), caltaboşi (sausages made with liver and other offal), tobă, piftie (dishes using pig's feet, head and ears suspended in aspic), tochitură (pan-fried pork) and sarmale (stuffed cabbage rolls, made with cabbage or vine leaves) served with mămăligă (cooked by boiling water, salt and cornmeal in a special-shaped cast iron pot). After a long day, as a some sort of reward I had a small glass of vişinată (an alcoholic beverage produced from sour cherries , sugar and alcohol).

On 24th the house had to be in order, for receiving the children that go caroling from one family to another. The carols remember about the Jesus’ birth in a poor stable in Bethlehem, the star that revealed to the three Magi the place where the Son of God was born or Santa Claus. There were  times when the children that caroled received apples, nuts or biscuits. Nowadays they receive money and are always complaining about the sum. There is a belief accordingly to whom the ones who receive the carol singers will be lucky and healthy during the whole next year. 

I am the one who decorates the house and the Christmas tree. This year I had to decorate only two white walls but I remembered the feeling that I had when I was at home. I thought about the smell of cinnamon and oranges, the globes and the Christmas lights and about trying to put the presents somewhere where my parents will see only in the morning of 25th. This year I also missed my special Santa Claus, a decoration which I have managed to keep for 20 years. I missed the snow and going to my grandmother and tell her how much I love her, visiting my relatives and telling them to be good and so will convince Santa to come, as I missed my friends and taking long walks and having snow fights with almost frozen fingers.

In the end, I missed Iaşi, my hometown, with all the Christmas concerts and celebrations, with the Christmas parade of the elves, reindeers, Santa Clauses and Snow Queen, the old boulevards where everybody can listen to slowly played carols and the usual Christmas fair that takes places in one of the main squares of the city; a fair where all kinds of things can be bought, from sweets, presents or things made by artisans.

I wonder if this year the old epoch tram that crosses the town during winter holidays was decorated in the same way as in the last years.

In reality, a Christmas full of memories and things that I have missed. A Christmas that was true only in my mind and my heart, a unique Christmas that cannot be compared, no matter what.