Celebrating Christmas in Romania

Romanians celebrate Christmas as any other Christian country: people clean their homes, prepare the food, go carolling and attend the Christmas mass. However, Romanians do have some typical traditions for this holiday; on the 20^th December, called “Ignat” in the honour of Saint Ignatius, people sacrifice the pig. Then, during 2 or 3 days before Christmas women prepare various delicious pork sausages, bacon and the typical Romanian dish called “sarmale”, made of pickled cabbage leaves stuffed with a mixture of pork and beef, rice, pepper and other spices; also the Romanian desert – “cozonac”, a cake filled with nuts and raisins.

People decorate the fir tree so that on Christmas morning the little ones can find their presents from “Moş Crăciun” (Santa Claus) under the tree. The custom of going carolling is still preserved in many parts of the country – a group of people, usually dressed in folk costumes go from house to house singing Christmas carols, till morning. They are said to bring fortune and happiness and are given cakes, apples, nuts and money.

Romanians celebrate the birth of our Lord with great joy!

Romania's National Day - 1st December

        

          December 1st – the Great Union Day – is Romania’s National Day. Romanians celebrate the great unification of 1918 during the reign of king Ferdinand I and queen Mary. It was then that Romania – made of Moldova and Wallachia at the time – was unified with Transylvania, Crişana, Banat and the Maramureş area.
          The unification took place in the city of Alba Iulia – the soul capital of the country. Here the unification declaration was read during a public event attended by over 100,000 Romanians.
             Every year Alba Iulia celebrates a dream of Romanians come true.