To a nation where people wish each other things on a wildly wide range of occasions, from having a haircut to getting down to work or wearing new shoes, the Christmas and New Year wishes are highly important. Whether made over the phone, in a text message, by email or handwritten in a classical Christmas card, the winter holidays wishes go in different tones and styles. Let’s review some of them. 1) Classical & common Standard wishes necessarily include a reference to good he

It’s winter. Unless you are the victim of Ionel, a spoilt brat who poured jam into his mother’s guest’s boots (in satirist Ion Luca Caragiale’s short story “Vizita”), you should have no good reason to have in your boots anything other than your own socks and feet. Or so you’d think. Well, not if it’s the 6th of December. On that day, early in the morning, here in Romania you’re likely to find sweets and fruit, or alternatively a rod in your boots. And the “culprit” for that w

There’s a Romanian saying, “Tot ce-i trei e bun” (“Good things go in threes”). It means that you have to try something twice and then once more to succeed - or, in other words, success comes with the third attempt, the third time round. Indeed, that is the case with Romania’s Union: in 1918, when King Ferdinand and Queen Marie of Romania accomplished the unification of all the provinces inhabited by Romanians (i.e. Wallachia, Moldavia, Transylvania, Bucovina and Bessarabia),

If you’re an expat who has lived in Romania for a few good months, you are very likely to have been told, when you got a haircut or a new hairdo, something along the lines of “May it settle well with you!” – which didn’t make much sense but sounded wholeheartedly positive. Similarly, if you’re a Romanian using English as a foreign language, you’re quite likely to have asked an English native, “What do you wish someone who’s got a new pair of shoes?” (You don’t wish them anyth

In 2016, the president of Romania signed a decree establishing 19 November as the official Men’s Day. Celebrated in over 60 countries, this day is meant to focus public attention on men’s health, education, parenting role, etc. Some of the health issues include lower life expectancy than women’s (67 compared to 74), lack of appropriate psychological care (men’s suicide rate is three times higher than women’s), or gender-based discrimination. According to the decree, Men’s Day

Weekend holidaymakers and locals strolling on Bucharest’s Calea Victoriei on 1 April 2018 experienced the thrill of losing their way right into turbulent 1945 Romania. Streams of angered workers in navy overalls, suburban housewives with worried eyes under their grey scarves, young intellectual rebels sporting the ringlet curls of the trendy ‘40s, and bourgeois men in smartly tailored three-piece suits – all, swelling into the Palace Square. For handsome 24-year-old King Mich

There was once a Roman offspring On Momma Dochia’s braided string. Handsome and news-some, Stuck to the ladies’ bosom, Love, luck and much fun he always did bring! If there’s a Romanian tradition to fully deserve an Irish limerick, that’d be the mărţişor! Because of its fine blend of clover-level luck and a spirit of merriment in the month of St Patrick, i.e. March. On Thracian edge-of-the-Empire territory, i.e. nowadays Romania, the tradition understandably and predictably s

Do you ever miss those cold winter mornings when the whole house smells of sweet bread (cozonac) and your friends call you to go out carolling? I close my eyes and I can feel that smell again… Do you ever want to be a child again, to go sleighing and snowballing all day long? Well, I do! I really miss those wonderful times! I remember all the family preparations before Christmas: cooking the traditional Romanian cabbage rolls (sarmale), pork specialties like piftie, tobă, cal

A few years ago around Christmas, a Romanian-American acquaintance I was supposed to meet for a chat and coffee phoned to put off our meeting: he’d been invited to a childhood friend’s house to have a meal of “piftie and other such barbarities.” My acquaintance, a vegetarian Buddhist from an old aristocratic Moldovan family, who was now visiting the old country after 40 years in the US, was, of course, horrified by the prospect. The barbarities in question, colloquially known

Sânziene - the word designates an annual festival held in honor of the fairies. Etymologically, the name comes from the Latin Sancta, Diana,

Nowadays, Romanian weddings are an interesting combination of old and new, religion and tradition. When a couple decides to get married, there are lots of steps and procedures which have to be followed before this event. First of all, they should set up the date and check for the availability of the people from the city hall (for the civil wedding), the priests (for the religious one), as well as for the venue of the wedding party. After all being set, the couple has to find

The Romanian Easter is an Orthodox holiday. Easter (or the Resurrection) celebrates Jesus’ ascension to Heaven. This is always a Sunday holiday and the Monday after is usually a free day. The word for Easter in Romanian is Paște, with its other form Paști. The most commonly known Easter tradition in Romania is painting eggs. How the eggs are painted will vary from one region to the other. Red is the traditional colour (it symbolizes Jesus’ blood), but in modern days Easter eg

Ready? Steady. Hold it right! You hold it honest! No cheating. Ready? Yup. “Christ is risen!” “He is risen indeed!” CRACK! Little did we Romanian children know that our Easter eggs, dyed by mother on Holy Thursday in the steamy kitchen where the roast lamb was in a very hot get-perfectly-cooked race against the cozonac [1], had come down through the mists of Time all the way from - where else? - Africa, cradle of all sapiens. Back then and there, humans reportedly decorated o

Vin Floriile cu soare Și soarele cu Florii! (Vasile Alecsandri) Palm Sunday is a Christian feast celebrated on the last Sunday before Easter which is called in Romanian Duminica Floriilor or simply Florii. This is the day that commemorates Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The holiday has roots before Christianity, when pagans used to celebrate Floralia, dedicated to goddess Flora, the goddess of flowers. The Roman festival of Floralia is dated in 238 B.C and it used to

1st of March - Mărțișor For celebrating the spring’s arrival on the 1st of March and the beginning of a new life cycle, Romanians have a special tradition, called Mărțișor. This tradition is a very old one (about 8000 years old) and it is linked to Romanian ancestors - the Dacians, who were wearing red and white pebbles strung on a string and worn around the neck, to celebrate the beginning of spring. The word mărțișor is the diminutive from the month of March (martie), whic

Dragobete is an old Romanian holiday celebrated every year on the 24th of February. After the fall of the communism, it has become a response festivity to Valentine’s Day, very popular in the western countries, but also borrowed by many young Romanian people. The legend says Dragobete was the son of Baba Dochia, a famous character from an old pagan myth related to the arrival of spring and the end of winter. It is the time of the year when birds start building their nests and