Posts filed under ‘.winter’
The Full Cold Moon
December Video from The Old Farmer’s Almanac
Winter Holidays in Romania
In Romania we celebrate Saint Nicholas Day, Christmas and New Year.
Saint Nicholas Day is celebrated on the night of December 5th, when children are cleaning and polishing their boots carefully and put them by the door or on the windowsill to wait for St. Nicholas’ (Moş Nicolae) visit. He is generous to parents as well as children, putting a little present in each boot. In some areas, branches or thin twigs are left as a warning that behavior needs to improve. It is one of the most important Romanian holidays.
Christmas is known as ‘Crăciun‘ in Romania and is celebrated on December 25th. The celebrations begin with the decoration of the Christmas Tree on Ajunul Craciunului (Christmas Eve). Romanian children receive presents from Moş Crăciun (Santa Claus) in the evening of Christmas Eve and do not leave milk and cookies out for Moş Crăciun.
Carols, called ‘colinde‘ in Romanian, are a very important part of the Romanian Christmas festivities. Throughout the Christmas season, children visit every house in the neighborhood singing carols such as Steaua sus răsare (The Star) and Moş Crăciun (Santa Claus) and reciting traditional poems and legends. In return for such performances, carolers receive apples, nuts, traditional cakes (cozonaci), and sometimes even money from each house.
Traditional Romanian Christmas meals include saramale (stuffed cabbage rolls) with mămăligă (polenta), many types of pork sausages, roast pork, pickles, beef salad. The traditional Christmas dessert is called “cozonac”. It is a rich sweet bread filled with ground walnuts, raisins,dried fruits, similar to the Italian panettone. It requires a long preparation time that begins early on the morning of Christmas Eve.
Romanians welcome the New Year with the traditions that have been around for centuries. The children as well as the adults, take part in the joyous celebrations with great enthusiasm. On New Year’s Eve in Romania, children sing Sorcova and Pluguşorul. The songs wish good luck, happiness and success.
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SEE ALSO: CHRISTMAS CUSTOMS IN ROMANIA
Romanian Winter Season Traditions
Spending the winter holidays in Romania: local traditions
If Ice in November
If ice in November will bear a duck,
Nothing comes after but sleet and muck
.variant
Frost in November to hold a duck
The rest of the winter is slush and muck.
One kind word can warm three winter months
Japanese proverb
Onion skins very thin
Onion skins very thin,
Mild winter coming in;
Onion skins thick and tough,
Coming winter cold and rough.
Old English Proverb
More Weather Lore
Baba Dochia
After a romanian folktale about the days of Baba Dochia
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A long time ago, there was an old woman forgotten by time and kindness, who lived in a cottage of stone, up in the mountains. Baba Dochia was her name.
It was so cold inside her soul that she was always dressed up with nine lambskins.
Only her son Dragobete and the sheep lived with her.
One day, Dragobete marries Nora, a beautiful and kind girl, and brings her home.
But Baba Dochia didn’t like Nora, and made her life hard, giving her odd jobs.
That year it was a cold and long winter. One day, Baba Dochia blames Nora for the bad weather and sends her to bring spring flowers.
Saddened by her new task, Nora left without knowing where to go to find spring flowers in the winter snow.
Wandering in the cold, she meets a kind man, Mărţişor. She tells him her sad story, and Mărţişor gives her some white snowdrops that bring spring.
Happy, Nora is running back home with the snowdrops. It was the first day of March.
When Baba Dochia sees Nora with the snowdrops, she thinks that spring has come back and leaves for the mountains with her sheep.
She is dressed with the nine lambskins, but it rains on the mountain and the skins get soaked and heavy. Dochia has to get rid of them, one lambskin every day.
After nine days, the frost comes back, the rain turns into ice, and Baba Dochia and her sheep turn into stone.
You can still see the Babele stones up in the mountains.
Baba Dochia
Rhea or the Great Mother with the name Dochia and Dochiana in Romanian legends.
Groundhog Day
Little groundhog down below
Underneath the wintry snow
Come on out and tell us true
Is Spring coming?
Is Winter through?
If Candlemas day be dry and fair
If Candlemas day (2 February) be dry and fair
The half o’ winters to come and mair
If Candlemas day be wet and foul
The half o’ winter’s gane at Yule
Nursery Rhyme Origins and History
The words and lyrics of the nursery rhyme ‘If Candlemas day be dry and fair’ is a day on which the superstitious believe the weather can be predicted, as in St. Swithin’s day. The rhyme is saying that if the sun comes out on 2nd February , halfway between Winter and Spring, it meant six more weeks of winter weather. Candlemas day falls on 2nd February, as does St Bridget’s Day and Groundhog Day. Candlemas has been celebrated for hundreds of years and it was the custom on Candlemas Day for clergy to bless candles and distribute them to the people. Candlemas Day was therefore celebrated as the festival of candles – a bright light in the middle of a cold, dark winter when a lighted candle was placed in every window. Candlemas falls between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox and was originally a Pagan celebration. A superstition was brought to America by German settlers that on St Bridget’s Day (2nd February) hedgehogs would come out to judge the quality of the weather. There were no hedgehogs in the New World but there were Groundhogs and this was the origin Groundhog Day:
If the sun shines on Groundhog Day
Half the fuel and half the hay.
There are several rhymes of this nature, some of which also have significant historical relevance such as:
If St Paul’s day (29 June) be fair and clear
St. Swithin’s day if thou dost rain
