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.
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Usually there is nothing interesting about our days at school. We had to work hard from the start if we wanted to be succsessful. We had a lot of work and sometimes we thought it was useless. We did not have a lot of spare time – just homework, homewor, homework ...
I felt that my life was just school and that I had no time to see the world around us. I always said: „You have nothing to do for this time, school is your only work now.“
Wrong philosophy – I would say today. Because the man should not forget the beautiful things and beautiful sides of the life. Even if the situation is not good. If somebody lives his life just for something what he must do - not for something what he want to do, his days seem to be empty. And, you know, the rule of the present world is that nothing is such as it seems to be .
Now I think it is enough of my „clever“ words... I should say something positive. And it is connected with my stay in Holland last spring. We stayed there 3 weeks and we obtained there some skills in practice, we discovered the new country, we got in touch with the life in European Union. It all was an unforgetable experience. I will not describe all progress of that stay because what I want to say is that our effort was not useless. And that is the main philosophy of my life: do something what is not useless. I know it is possible to do every time. But today we must be strong enough to achieve something great and unforgetable. We must work to reach something.
Now I hear your question: „And what abot love?“ Is there some place for it in our life? Do we have some place for it in our hearts? Does somebody have a place in his/her heart for us? Is love ever alive? I have not got the answer yet...
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Every Easter I visit my family and cousins in the village. It's full of fun. Easter Monday is a funny day but only in case if you are not a girl. There are many groups of boys in the street from early morning till noon. Me and my friends go from home to home.When we come into a girl's house we try to find her because she is usually hiding somewhere. When we find her, we beat girls with plaited willow and pour some water on the girl. Small boys say various traditional rhymes while doing this. Then they pour their parfume on the gril's hair. The girl gives us some cakes, chocolate Easter eggs or painted eggs, or even some money. Some boys are offered by alcohol, so after 10 or 15 visites they are drunk. I really enjoy our families " Easter in easter". In folk culture, the Easter egg was a magical symbol of life and spring. The favourite color for eggs was red - the colour of blood and life.
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Easter monday is for boys big day.Me and my friends from early morning visiting the girls.All of us has a plited willow cane and a small bottle of parfume.When we came into girl house.A girl is usually hiding somewhere in the house. The boys and I try to find her.When we find her,we start whipping her on her bottom and legs.After this,we pour our parfume on her hair.A girl gives us some painted eggs, chocolate easter eggs,or some money but not too much. A girl has to change her clothes two or three times on Easter monday.We boys like this day becaus is very funny.
Hello Dear Dutch and Spanish Friends
Our school life is still very active. Last Wednesday we had a special occassion to perform our skills in a field of literature. We had a competition in recitation. Several young students recited poems and prose articles in Slovak language. The competition is named after a great Slovak poet Pavol Orzságh Hviezdoslav who lived in 19th century. We spent a great time together with young musicians who played some songs.