Easter

Every year we celebrate Easter. Easter represents the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

This is how we prepare for Christmas : We clean our houses, we paint the eggs and we prepare traditional food. On Easter day, we go to the church, we crack red eggs and we say “Cristos a inviat!” which means “Christ is risen!” and we answer ”Adevarat a-nviat!” “Indeed He is risen!”. And let’s not forget the Easter Bunny which brings us presents! All the children love him!

EGG DECORATION

A very interesting Easter tradition is the egg decoration.

How to do it :

Wash the egg shell

Wipe the egg with vinegar

Make one or two small holes with a needle and take out the interior of the egg (yolk and white)

Draw a model using  a “condei” (a stick with a metal pointed end) dipped into hot wax.

Introduce the egg into yellow paint (the drawing will remain white)

After it is dried, draw more models then dip the egg into red paint

Dry it again, draw more models and dip it this time into black paint

Put the egg on a radiator and melt the wax

The decorations (the drawings) will remain white, while the egg will have different colours.

 

The decorations are very different and have different meanings. Every year we decorate eggs with our Religion teacher. We even participate to contests!

Martisor

 

“Martisor” (translated as spring amulet) is celebrated in Romania at the beginning of spring, on the first of March.

It celebrates the beginning of spring. The name comes from the name of the month March (“martie” in Romanian and “mart” in old Romanian). We can also find this tradition in Bulgaria (Martenita). It is a very old tradition, coming from pre- Christian times.

“Martisorul” is a traditional talisman, which can represent  anything: a flower, an animal or a chimney sweeper-which brings good luck). On this talisman is attached a red and white string. Red is the colour of fire, blood, and a symbol of life, associated with women, while white is the colour of snow, clouds, and the wisdom of men. The string also represents the contrasts like spring and winter, life and death, war and peace. It protects people from evil and it makes them beautiful and healthy.

Boys give “martisoare” to girls and they wear them. All children, boys and girls give “martisoare” to their mother and teachers. Every year we make “martisoare” with our Art teacher, Diana Lazar, and we wear, give or sell them.

It is a wonderful celebration!

Autumn festivities

Sumedru`s fire

 At Sumedru`s fire people eat cakes, drink hot wine and give children sweets, nuts and apples. They dance round the fire, tell funny jokes. Everybody feels very happy. Sumedru`s fire is celebrated in October.

11th  November: Lanternen Fest (Saint Martin)

The story of Saint Martin

St. Martin was a soldier. One night, when he was riding his horse, he saw a beggar. He stopped and shared his cloak and food with him. The following night, Martin had a dream where Jesus thanked him and told him that he would win the battle.

He won the battle and then he retreated in the wilderness under the name of St. Martin. In his memory, every November we celebrate Lanternen fest.

Lanternen fest

To prepare, we start doing the lanterns at school. We make them from coloured paper or cardboard and put a candle inside it. In the evening of 11th November we celebrate Saint Martin together. We meet (children, teachers and parents) and we go in the town with the lanterns on. We sing some traditional St. Martin songs, such as: “Lanterne”, “ Ich gehe mit meine Laterne”  and “St. Martin”. We go to the “Promenade”, a place in the forest where the children play, eat nuts and apples. The adults give us sweets, biscuits and tea. We share the gifts, as Saint Martin shared his cloak and bread. We like it because we learn to share our gifts with the others.

Christmas

PREPARING FOR CHRISTMAS

It’s December. It’s time to start our preparations for Christmas.

CHRISTMAS CAROLS
First, we  learn Christmas carols and we repeat them during Religion hours. We are very proud because we went to church and sang Christmas carols for all the people there.

CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS

We started making the Christmas decorations a few weeks  before Christmas. With our Art teacher we painted plaster shapes. There were Christmas trees, angels, Santa Clauses, presents. We also made pictures from napkins and we painted glass. With all these we climbed the hill to the citadel. The surprise was that it started to snow! We felt like princesses and princes in a fairy land! Here we had a workshop for the visitors of the citadel. We were there  two days and we showed people how to make Christmas decorations. We also sold our products and we gathered money for out Art Club. On the last day, together with the citadel wardens we decorated a beautiful Christmas tree situated in the citadel yard. Our presence in the citadel was very successful. We appeared in the newspaper and also on some websites. We felt very happy.

CHRISTMAS AT SCHOOL

On the last day of school, we celebrated Christmas together.  First we  cleaned the classroom. Then we decorated the Christmas tree and listened to Christmas music form all over the world. We exchanged presents and took photos. Everybody brought something to eat and drink. Alex brought his famous cookies called “baskets” (“cosulete”).  We even drank champagne (for children! ) It was a fabulous day!

CHRISTMAS AT HOME
For Christmas we send Christmas cards, e-mails, messages to our friends. Children write letters to Santa Claus and put them under the Christmas tree or at the window. A few days before Christmas, we prepare our houses for Christmas. We arrange decorations at the windows (Santa Claus, candles, stars). The Christmas tree is decorated with globes, tinsel and on top of it with a star. For Christmas, people’s houses are always a beautiful and bright paradise. But the most important thing for Christmas is to be together with your family and enjoy it together.

CAROLING

On Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.  We all learn Christmas carols to announce the good news. On Christmas Eve we go caroling from house to house. People listen to us and give us nuts, apples, candies and sometimes money. It’s a tradition so we do this every year. On Christmas we go to church and sing carols. Everybody is happy when it’s Christmas!

SANTA CLAUS
On Christmas night we all wait for Santa Claus who comes with presents for all.  We leave cakes and milk for him because we love him very much. We are all very excited when we open our presents!

TRADITONAL FOOD by Stefan
For Christmas we all eat and prepare traditional food. For example, my Mum made very good meat roll (rulada de carne), sausages, liverwurst (caltabos) and filled eggs. For lunch my dad prepared delicious roast pork and Mum the best cabbage rolls(sarmale). For desert, my Grandmother Rose cooked good ginger bread (turta dulce) and the best sponge cake (cozonac). My Mum is expert in apple pie and cheese pie. We invited our relatives around a big table and we ate together for Christmas. It was beautiful.

Cabbage rolls : recipe

Ingredients : Meat, Rice, Cabbage leaves, Onion, Carrots, Pepper, Salt
Instructions: Wash the rice. Mince the meat. Chop the onions. Grate the carrots. Mix all the ingredients. Add some salt, and pepper. Take small balls of meat, rice, and roll them in the cabbage leaves. Put them into the pot. Pour water over them. Put the pot into the oven.
Enjoy! (Pofta buna!)

World snow day

On 22nd January it was The WORLD SNOW DAY. We all celebrated it on Carbunarii Valley. In 2013 here will take place The Youth Olympic Festival. We all admired the new and modern Olympic base. There were a lot of sports competitions going on:  country skiing, biathlon and ski jumping, all for children.  We followed our teacher who took a lot of pictures at the ski jump. We liked because they were kids like us. Some flew through the air for more than 10 meters! But the most interesting part was when the snowman competition started!  We worked with the other kids from our school. The snow was not very easy to shape. Our teachers helped us. The surprise was that we won the first prize for the most beautiful snowman. We even gave interviews for television! We also won the 3rd place for the largest number of participants. (We were  60 pupils from our school!). We had a great time. We learnt how important is to spend time outside, with friends, enjoying the fresh air. It was an extraordinary day!

THIS WAY IS MY COUNTRY

CHRISTMAS CARDS FROM SPAIN