Czech Christmas Traditions

Category: Broadcast

In this Czech-American TV online Broadcast you will see:

Czech Cooking:  Czech Christmas Cookies  One of the Czech Christmas Traditions is baking homemade cookies. There are many styles – but vanilla crescents and wasp nest cookies are always among them.

Czech Traditions:  If you are having Christmas dinner with a Czech family you will most likely be treated  fish soup, followed by  carp and potato salad. Most Czechs skip lunch on the 24th and the Christmas Eve meal is their first proper meal that day. However you will find a wide variety of Christmas cookies – as many as nine different kinds on the table that people munch on throughout the day.

The foretelling of the future and predicting the well-being of the family in the coming year is connected with many popular Christmas customs some of which are still practiced today. The Floating of Walnut Shells – Little boats are made out of empty walnut shells and each family member places a little burning candle into a shell. Everyone’s shells are then floated on a bowl of water. If the shell makes it across the bowl, its owner will live a long and healthy life. A shell that sinks brings bad luck to its owner.

The Cutting of the Apple
After Christmas dinner, every person present at the table cuts an apple in half (crosswise, from the stem down). Both halves are shown to everyone around the table. If the core is shaped as a star, it means that everyone will get together next year in happiness and health. A four-pointed cross is a bad omen and means that someone at the table will fall ill or die within a year.

Czech Class :  In this lesson you can learn more about Czech Christmas

Czech Tradition: If any country in the world is home to the Christmas carol, it has to be the Czech Republic. The tradition of carolling goes back centuries, and Czech Christmas music is a wonderfully rich mixture of spiritual, secular, classical and folk traditions.

Czech Songs: The Musica Folklorica has its roots in the Moravian – Slovakian border area, which is musically very rich in melodies, song and dance. It is distinctly related to the culture of ethnic minorities living in the Czech Republic but also to traditions of our nearest neighbors, especially Slovakia and Hungary.

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