Christmas Day

Christmas Day in Romania was very different than America but no less busy. The boys slept until 8:30 at which time Nolan exclaimed that Santa had found his presents and put them under the tree. We had breakfast before we even opened presents. I tell you this to contrast my American Christmas morning breakfast to my Romanian Christmas breakfast. In America we usually spend the night at my parents and when we wake up Christmas morning we have a huge breakfast- pancakes, homemade apple topping, egg omelet baked in the oven, donuts, oranges, bacon, etc.. Our breakfast this year was no less exciting although most of you will not think so. We all ate cereal. Not just any cereal. Our Christmas package from our church contained an 8 pack of little Kellogg's cereals. We each ate two of these and Melania finally opened her box of Lucky Charms she brought from America. This may not sound exciting to you but it was to us although I must say that there is a lot more sugar in American cereals. After that we opened presents. We had quite a variety from grandparents, aunts and uncles, and some we brought from America.

Around 12:30 we went to Roberta's house for Christmas dinner. Thanks to whoever sent me Raspberry jello I was able to make jello for dinner. I also made green bean casserole. You say- whats the big deal- a can of cream of mushroom soup, some Durkee french fried onions, and beans. Well it is not so easy when you have to make everything except the beans from scratch. I also made a banana cream pie which Maurice was nice enough to share his favorite pie with all of Roberta's guests. The banana cream pie was a real hit with the Romanian dinner guests. Dinner at Roberta's was like Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. It tasted wonderful.

Now this should have been the end of our busy afternoon until church that night but at the end of Christmas caroling last night we got another invitation for Christmas dinner. Of course I said yes- it was a Romanian family and you don't turn down Romanian hospitality. I also wanted the experience of a Romanian Christmas. As soon as we had finished eating at Roberta's we headed to the Ludu house. Dinner was started with the traditional molded potato salad. I love that stuff. There was also homemade grape juice. After that was done and cleared from the table they brought out a piece of homemade sausage and sarmale with sour cream. Sarmale is the traditional food for any celebration in Romania. It was really good. This was followed by plates of homemade cozonac. This is also a traditional bread for Christmas. There were several varieties- nuts, poppy seeds, turkish delight, and raisins. They were delicious. Then Mrs Ludu served mint tea made with leaves from their garden. That was really good. I had brought a fruit salad and that was brought out at the end. It was definitely an American fruit salad- oranges, pineapple, bananas, whip cream, cut up strawberry marshmallows, and white marshmallows. The Ludu girls loved it.

We relaxed and enjoyed some wonderful conversation. Most of the Ludu girls speak English but Mr and Mrs Ludu do not. Instead of making the girls translate we tried our best to speak Romanian. It was a lot of fun. But alas- on to the next event. We had church in Sighisoara at 6:00 that night. The church was all lit with candles and was beautiful. Melanie and I sang along with Sandy Ludu and Ligia. We sang traditional Romanian Christmas songs along with a couple American Christmas carols - only in Romanian. The group of us that went caroling the night before also had a chance to sing. The Christmas story was told but also the analogy that Christ came to the world to be a light in the world. That is when the last advent candle was lit. At this point oranges were passed out. Each orange had a candle in it. Roberta talked about how we were also called to be a light in our world. Each candle was lit and it was simply beautiful.

Our day was not quite finished though. Mel took the boys home and put them to bed but Maurice and I went back to Roberta's house. We warmed up leftovers for one last Christmas meal. This gave us energy to do the mountain of dishes left from Christmas dinner. This was a real service to Roberta. About two 1/2 hours later we finally headed home and Christmas was over.