Christmas is holiday that people in every country look forward to. It is the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Among many Christmas symbols, there are evergreen trees, candles, stars, angels, bells, wreaths, holly and mistletoe but each country has different customs and traditions.

In Slovakia, four weeks before Christmas, Advent time begins. We decorate our houses with Christmas wreath and candles. Everybody runs from the store to the store and look for some presents. We also send Christmas cards to our friends and relatives. Mothers make some sweets, usually vanilla rolls and Christmas cake.

A day before the Christmas Eve, in the morning, we decorate a Christmas tree with electric lights, glass balls and some sweets and on Christmas Eve we put some presents under the tree. We don't eat anything all day long, but the Christmas Dinner is very rich and huge. We start the dinner with special Christmas waffles, honey with garlic. We like our special sauce made of hot honey with chopped garlic in it. Than we eat buns (it is a little baked dumplings with honey and poppy seed). The traditional Christmas soup is sauerkraut - soup with sausages and mushrooms and we finish the dinner with fried carp and potatoes salad. During the dinner we drink some wine, brandy or soft drink.

After the dinner we unwrap the presents and we listen to Christmas Carols and we are all happy. Then we watch some X-mas movies on TV and at midnight we go to Midnight Mass. On Christmas Day we are usually at home and we go to church again or we visit our relatives. We do the same on the second Christmas Day.

Some people go skiing to the mountains, where they can celebrate Christmas and New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.