Thursday, January 7, 2010

Merry Christmas Part 2

Srećan Božić (SREH-chan-BOW-zheech) or Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate Serbian Orthodox Christmas, which is today. I took this photo at the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade a short while ago. It shows a typical village Christmas table with the oak branch, nuts, prunes, candle, and the straw and corn, which is usually scattered under the table. There's also a flask of Serbian plum brandy! The round cake is not actually a cake, but rather a bread called a česnica (CHESS-neet-sa), which you can read more about right here. Basically, there's a coin inside that will bring good health and happiness to the finder. Bite carefully.

13 comments:

xdexx said...

Hristos se rodi !

Leif Hagen said...

Welcome home! Glad you're back to Belgrade safely! I guess you had a marvelous trip, right? Thanks for showing us the Serbian Orthodox Christmas!
Happy New Year!

B SQUARED said...

Welcome home and Merry Christmas!

BaysideLife said...

Found you through Paula @ Pensacola Daily Photo. Just spent some time looking over your blog and I'm anxious to see more of your photography and learn more about where you are and where you go. Great pictures.

Marie Reed said...

So Christmas is on the Epiphany! The bread reminds me of a galette des rois too! Welcome home!!!!!

Mara said...

Well, again Merry Christmas then! The cake or bread looks really good. And plum brandy? Mmmmmm, might have to try that one day...

Louis la Vache said...

We're happy to see you are safely back from India!

The česnica seems to be similar to the French Galette des Rois.

Lowell said...

Nice to have you back. And this looks like a very nice tradition...but then I'm a little nuts about nuts. Serbian plum brandy sounds good, too. And any food with money in it has to be of some value!

XAPT said...

Merry 2nd Christmas!
Mir Boziji. Hristos se rodi.

Gaelyn said...

That's a pleasant and homey table arrangement. Srećan Božić to you Bibi.

Gheo said...

Srecan Bozic i za vas!
I really enjoy your photo blog. Hope I'll come some day in Beograd and see at least some of those places.

Chuck Pefley said...

Happy Christmas!

A very interesting set in the museum. I assume the straw and corn scattered on the floor is because traditionally animals shared this space as well?

Welcome home, Bibi!

Anonymous said...

My mom's cesnica is different..more like baklava but with raisins, and layered a little differently than baklava. Then again, she said that's how they make it in Vojovdina. This year, she put 2 coins in, one for each of our young daughters, so I hope the each have a great year! Thank you for the post. As a first generation Serb-American, I didn't always get to see traditional holidays, b/c my mom doesn't like straw in the home.

SPRING FASHION

 This is a post that would be better in color, but maybe not. These colors were soooo pale.