I don't think we can start a post today without this greeting right at the beginning - Merry Christmas.
And that is so nice by the way, we celebrate a beautiful date, regardless of whether you are Christian or not. It is also a cultural and family holiday, celebrating unity, love, charity, and hope.
As humanity, we at least try to support others around these dates, help as much as possible or bring a smile to their face in all sorts of ways (greetings, Christmas postcards, good wishes, singing or playing music...), although sometimes Christmas and the beauty of this celebration are perceived in a different way. Many things are so commercialised nowadays, and if you saw my post yesterday, you saw that I was also "forced" to participate in that commercialisation in some way. Buying gifts requires leaving money in stores. It is not that it is completely wrong, no, because the purpose of it is to give something to loved ones. Even if it is a small detail, it means that we haven't forgotten that we want them to feel important to us.
However, much more important is to preserve the real spirit of a holiday through your beliefs, acts and keeping some traditions. Well, so many things have changed over the years (decades and centuries). About those remote ones, we can know just from reading about them or looking at old photos. Let's see... let's find some evidence of things that slightly changed over the decades.
If I observe these two family photos I have in one of my drawers, I can notice that:
1.) My dad was an adorable little boy 😊
2.) The Christmas trees were quite tall and decorated in a simple way with "szaloncukor" 🎄
2.) Snow ❄️
Oh, I don't remember the last time we had a white Christmas. Obviously, I can't complain about it as we moved more than a decade ago to a place where snow is a very, very rare occurrence.
So, we are leaving the snow topic behind. But I am sure that the decoration on these two Christmas trees would be interesting to mention.
Using Szaloncukor is a simple but elegant way to decorate your Christmas tree if you are a Hungarian and care about traditions, although they are not the same anymore as they were some 70 years ago, as in these photos. When I was small, we still had a few from those old days, but they were not edible (anymore). They were just the decoration for the Christmas tree and were prohibited to eat. (When you are small you want to try everything. 😂)
So, what is actually this szaloncukor (parlour candy)?
Wrapped in a shiny piece of foil,
it is just a piece of flavoured fondant, hung by a thread to a branch of the Christmas tree - that simple it is, however, it was a part of the tradition since the 19th century. When my dad was this small, it was indeed the only decoration on their Christmas tree... And how nice it was! ❤️
Do you remember some of the traditions from your family or culture that have changed over the years?
