04 December 2010

Christmas Season in a New Place

December's arrival marks the beginning of the Christmas season for us in our new home.  I'm going to try to do a series of posts this month just detailing what Christmas is like for us this year.  The biggest difference is when Christmas happens here.  Serbia's calender is the Julian calender which results in Christmas being celebrated January 7th.  For an in depth explanation go here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_calendar.   The kids don't even get out of school for Christmas until Dec. 30th.  (On a side note, we can tease the kids about not getting to open presents until Serbian Christmas!)
Christmas is not as important here.  New years is a much bigger day (trees are not Christmas trees, they are new years trees).  We will still celebrate on the 25th (and maybe a little on the 7th).  I'll admit it has been a little more difficult to get in the Christmas spirit this year.  But this weekend I got a Christmas spirit booster shot.   This past weekend the girls stayed with friends in Novi Sad while we went to Budapest.  Things are much cheaper there so we knew we could save money.  When Jen and I woke up Friday morning it was to this:
Now I'm in the Christmas spirit!

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