Holidays, Holidays and MORE Holidays

The month of January is notorious for leading me to believe that there will be low-key relaxing days in its calendar: days that start late and end early, days that may be white involving snow-cream, snow men and snow angels, days that call for big puffy blankets and pillows, story books and hot chocolate, cozy, bundled, warm, bliss.  However, those glorious days of January do not exist in Macedonia (or probably anywhere except in my dreams). With New Years, Macedonian (Orthodox) Christmas (January 7th), Old New Year (January 13, 14) and Vodici (John the Baptist Day, January 19) this last month has been CRAZY busy. And what do holidays in Macedonia mean? They mean a visit to EVERYone you know.  We started off in full swing with New Year's. 

I mentioned in a earlier post that we were still waiting on Santa to come Makedonski style.  And what do kids in Macedonia get for New Years???

These pretty little packets are Santa's gift of choice here. And Dedo Mraz (Grandfather Ice, aka Santa) isn't the only one to bring these goodie bags to the foot of your decorative tree. Everyone else that darkens your door during this season also comes armed with a bag for each of your children. So we ended up getting about 30 bags.  And what is so great about these New Year's bags???

They are full of all the junk a child could ever dream of---chocolate bars, chocolate eggs, candy bars, cookies of many different varieties, juice boxes, pretzels, Flips (which are like peanut butter flavored cheetos), individually wrapped cakes, sesame sticks, candy and balloons And that is just one bag.  So needless to say, our pantry overflows with Balkan junk food.  

For New Year's Day we had our normal church time with a big fun lunch afterwards.  After church, we ate, sat around and sang songs, ate some more and talked more about the Bible.  I love our small group!

So fun!

Every holiday in Macedonia goes on for three days which means you have three days to visit people.  So for three days after New Years we went all over town visiting friends just to say, "Srekna Nova Godina" or as we say in America "Happy New Year!" Then a few days later, on January 7th, we went all over town visiting all of our friends just to say, "Sreken Bozik" or Merry Christmas.  Then we repeat the process for Old New Year and last but not least Vodici. And while we love going to visit people, when you throw two kids who are without naps and adequate rest and who really just want to be in a place where they can run around like bangees, this time of year can be truly exhausting and stressful on the whole family.

We managed to find time and energy to take the kids out for a walk around town to see the Christmas lights.  They do a really good job of decorating the center with lots of lights. Kate and Thomas had a blast running around looking at all of it.

Choo! Choo!

Our version of Rockefeller Center.

My engineer husband thought this was incredibly interesting wiring set-up to have in the open where kids run around.  I don't know why, but this is for those of you who think like him.

So the holiday craziness is finally nearing an end. We had a blast gathering around people's dinner tables and coffee tables for traditional Macedonian yummies, and perhaps my dreams for a cozy relaxing January will come true in the next week.