Thursday, December 25, 2008

The US and Moldovan winter holidays

The winter holidays are coming very soon. Everybody is getting ready with many presents for their family and their friends. It’s a good time to show the love and respect to each other. Christmas holiday is celebrated in different ways in many countries.

In Moldova, Christmas can start on January 7, for some people. This happens because some people celebrate it be the old calendar, or after Russian traditions. Most of the people celebrate Christmas on this day. The old calendar goes two weeks later than the new one. There are people who celebrate Christmas on December 25 as you celebrate in America.

The Christmas in Moldova is mostly a religious holiday. We spend time together with our families, friends, and relatives. Also, we go to the church. Everybody is listening to Christmas Carols. They can make a distinctive atmosphere of the holiday. The most interesting thing is when small kids go to the people’s houses singing these carols. It’s like going “Trick-or-Treating” in US, but we don’t scare the people, we just sing Christmas Carols.

I observe that in US everybody is excited about Christmas because they can offer and receive gifts. In my country we usually don’t offer any presents on Christmas. We give them on New Year’s Eve. Then is coming Santa Clause who also brings a lot of presents for kids. New Year is the next important holiday which we celebrate with our families. On this time everybody is getting ready to enter happily in the New Year.

Christmas Eve and Christmas are some of the most important religious holidays of the year, but New Year is the most important official holiday. Most people believe that if you say a wish in the New Year’s Eve, at 12 o’clock, your wish will get real during the year. The New Year is celebrated with many fireworks and a lot of good music.

It is fun for me to experience another kind of Christmas and New Year here and I am pretty sure that I will like them. I think that it’s interesting to have different customs while talking about holidays. They represent our culture. The holidays have a distinctive place in our soul because they make us to feel better, to forgive each other and try to be better.

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