Winter is my absolutely favorite season. I love the cold season in general but Winter Holidays are the most fascinating time of the year! That’s just in my point of view summer lovers 😉
What:
Skirt: Terranova.
Blouse: Lindex.
Sweater: ZARA .
Tights: Veneziana.
Shoes: Isabel Bellido “BEL BEL”.
Earings: www.eleja.lt .
Ring: www.eleja.lt .
For me even the birthday is less special than Christmas. It probably comes from childhood – as most of our memories have the biggest impact on how we see things later in life. And so winter holidays were always a big thing in our family. When I was small kid, my mother and I would start drawing pictures of winter landscape which later would be turned into post cards and sent to my grandparents, cousins, uncles and aunts. They would all kindly reply, so I began to fall for the paper mail as I loved to read the letters and postcards that were send back to us.
When: 23rd of December, 2011.
Later, we’d cook the dishes. Now I know that it varies from all around the world and there are different things that you put on the table on Christmas Eve. Traditionally in Lithuania we normally have: 1- “Herring under the covers” – herring coated with graded beetroot, boiled chopped carrots and eggs, fried fish, 2- “white salad” (canned peas, chopped vegetables: pickles, boiled carrots, potatoes, and chopped eggs ),3- some other kind of salad normally with beetroot, 4- fruits; 5- cooked minced meat in sort of jello; 6- poppy seed milk; 7- Christmas Eve cookies “kūčiukai” [koo-choo-kai]; 8 – Bread; 9- Boiled potatoes with dill; 10- Mushroom cutlets; 11- buns with poppy seeds; 12 – buns with mushrooms.
Of course that is a lot of food to cook for one family, so we normally share the dishes and 2-3 families cook it and bring ti to our grandmothers house who cooks the rest. There would many of my cousins gather and rooms begin to fill with hot steams from the kitchen, children’s’ laughter upstairs and parents hurrying about to make sure the table gets set and the presents are ready. Our grandparents had two rooms upstairs for kids bur very often we ended up sleeping in sleeping bags on the floor in order to be in one room. After the lights were out, there was still a lot of games, talks and colouring going on in our room. What a night that used to be!
My grandmother is very sympathetic so she used to put a giant christmas tree in the dining room and a separate one upstairs just for us. The tree downstairs was always a natural tree, decorated beautifully with sets of ornaments and matching bows and lights. The tree upstairs was an old plastic tree, flat branches and stiff pieces. It was always overwhelmingly decorated with colourful ornaments, golden bows and big shining lights. If I would see a tree like this nowadays I’d probably think the owner lacks a sense of taste. But then, for me as a child the tree was heavenly beautiful!! When we had to go to bed the grandparents would then leave the lights on the tree and we could enjoy that breath-taking beauty all night long. I used to think the tree was so beautiful that I imagined it having its own little world – with toys and pictures on the ornaments coming alive at night and would make up stories in my mind how do they live and what do they do walking on branches of the Christmas tree… 🙂
The brightest memory about the tree where the decorations: grandmother has saved up till now ornaments from her own childhood and the soviet times. The toys are far faaar from what are we see in the shops now; the ornaments would include plastic mushrooms, squirrels, glass balls and birds, acorns, all kinds of fruits: pears, strawberries, grapes…
(I guess you gotta be there to understand the sentimental point of it 😀 )
Here are some examples:
So from the beginning, Christmas is always about the special times when I was and still am loves, cared of and appreciated. The magic of the night, the mystical and festive spirits, good wishes, coziness, hugs, gifts, joy and laughter. Happy holidays everyone!
Truly Yours,
Vaiva K.
