New Year’s Eve, called Szilveszter in Hungary after Saint Szilveszter, is a day of indulgence but also of traditional precautions. All should be merry and spend the day eating and drinking, but beware of what you eat!
Do’s and Don’ts
Certain greedy animals will steal your luck for the New Year. If eaten on New Year’s Eve, poultry will scratch away your fortunes while fish will swim away with them. Pork is the safest choice, because a pig will root up your fortunes. If you happen to receive the tail in your portion, your luck for the year will know no bounds. For this reason, a crisp and golden roasted suckling pig, complete with an apple in its mouth, is the traditional fare of the holiday, served with a hefty side of red cabbage. It is also important to eat lentils, often cooked in a stew, for they will make you wealthy. Washing clothes, even hanging the washing, is forbidden; it means that someone will die in the coming year.
A Sign of Things to Come
As in other cultures, New Year’s Eve is a day that can foretell the rest of your year. Thus, it is a day to celebrate with family and friends, to drink champagne and be merry. In smaller villages, there is a tradition to ensure that the New Year is a good one. A doll, known as Jack Straw, is carried around the whole village. He represents all of the misfortune and disappointments of the past year, and at midnight, poor Jack Straw, carrying the weight of a year’s worth of regret and sorrow, is burned for all to see. While the bigger cities may not have a bad luck doll to set afire, at the stroke of midnight, all Hungarians will solemnly sing their beloved national anthem, their faces lit, not with the glow of the burning Jack Straw, but of the fireworks.
New Year’s Day finds a very quiet Hungary. All of the merry-making from the night before means that most will spend the first day of the New Year recovering from the night before. But there is one more tradition to keep in mind. It is important that the New Year is blessed by God, so before sitting down to the first meal of the year, you must place a piece of green wheat (which is sown before Christmas), a prayer book, and your purse on the table.
The Epiphany
January 6, the day of the Feast of the Epiphany, or Vízkereszt (Blessing of the Waters), marks the beginning of 40 days of abstinence and fasting for some European Christians, as they prepare for Easter Sunday. In other areas of the world, the Epiphany marks the last day of the 12 days of Christmas, which begins on December 25. In pagan times, it marked the last day of winter celebrations, a day to take down the decorations and tidy up for the New Year. Failure to do so could result in bad luck and demons haunting your home for the entire next year!
In Western churches, the Epiphany celebrates the evening when the three Wise Men (aka the Three Kings or the Magi) followed that bright star in the sky to where the baby Jesus lay in the manger. As they knelt down before their new king, offering gifts of frankincense, gold and myrrh, so began the traditional celebration of the revelation of Jesus. In Eastern churches, the Epiphany is the celebration of the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan, but the spirit of both the Eastern and Western traditions are the same: the manifestation of Christ to the people.
The Epiphany is the day when Christian churches bless the holy water for the following year. Some families will take a bottle of this holy water to bless their homes. In the 19th century, the Three Kings were given names, of which the Hungarian versions are Gáspár, Menyhért, and Boldizsár. After the home is blessed, the head of the household will write their initials along with the year in chalk over their door. These letters have a double meaning, for in addition to representing the Magi, they also stand for the Latin Christus mansionem benedicat, meaning “God bless this house”. This year, it would be written: 20 + C + M + B + 08. It is a sign thought to keep away evil, bad fortune, and illness from the family through the year.
Whether or not you choose to bless your house and write over your door in chalk, make sure you do one thing. Avoid a year’s worth of bad luck and take down those holiday decorations! As it was for our pagan brothers before us, it is time to prepare for the welcoming of spring at last.
By Michelle Enemark
