Holidays: Part 1

I realize that it has been several months since I have blogged.  Goodness!  Time just flies by.  I'll give you a quick lowdown on what has been happening here in the Czech Republic.

Holidays:  One thing that is great about living in a different country is that you get to celebrate a ton of holidays!  Since my last blog, we had Halloween (US), St. Martin's Day (CZ), Thanksgiving (US), St. Nicholas Day(CZ), Christmas Eve (US/CZ), Christmas Day (US/CZ), St Stephen's Day (CZ), New Year's Day (US/CZ), Restoration of the Czech Independence Day (CZ), and Three Kings Day (CZ).  I am sure I forgot one or two.  Some of these holidays we celebrated with friends, and some we just recognized, but didn't do anything to celebrate.

Halloween was special mainly because the kids wanted to go trick or treating.  Since they really don't celebrate it here, the kids were disappointed that they wouldn't be able to go trick or treating.  Our new friends really made trick or treating special.  The University students that live behind our building got candy and allowed us to walk through the dormitory and trick or treat.  They did it only for our two kids.  Talk about a Halloween we will never forget!

We loved going on a lantern parade with the kids from our Mom's club for St. Martin's Day.  Each child held a paper lantern and we walked through their village.  At the end, we lit the Chinese lanterns that floated up into the air.  We have really been blessed with wonderful friends through the Mom's Club.

We also got to experience eating baked goose for the first time.   It is suppose to be eaten on St. Martin's Day to get you "fattened up" for the winter months ahead.

St. Nicholas Day was a little different.  I had gotten sick so we couldn't go and spend time with our Mother's club friends and celebrate.  However, we need to do a little shopping for some necessities.  While we were out and about, we saw some young adults and teenagers dressed up as St. Nicholas, an angel, and a devil.  They usually go around Prague and hand out candy to the children.  My kids liked getting the candy.  It was interesting because we kept seeing angels that looked like they had come from Victoria Secret or something.  They left no room for imagination.  John and I kept saying that you wouldn't see something like that in America.  :-)

Christmas Eve and Christmas were bittersweet.  We definitely enjoyed spending time with friends here, but we missed our friends and family back in the states.  We did however spend Christmas Eve with some friends that killed a carp in their bathtub.  A big tradition in the Czech Republic is to have carp at Christmas time.  Many people buy carp from the guy selling it on the side of the road.  They take it home and let it swim in the bathtub for a couple of days.  Then, they kill it and eat it.  We arrived to late to see the actual killing of the carp, but we got to see the blood in the bathtub.  It definitely was interesting.  The carp tasted pretty good since it was fried and had plenty of seasoning on it!!!

 Here are the guys selling carp on the side of the street.

More holiday fun to be continued....