Karácsony

Happy holidays, Seattle, Barcs, wherever you are. The day after Thanksgiving, stores and storage were opened to the Christmas season, and on this day in Barcs, lights suddenly draped the streets. Be prepared for a similarly lit blog entry, two-dimen-sate, with sight and sound.

Santa Claus does not come to Hungary the night before Christmas. Instead, he comes on his name day, December 6th, the name day for Mikulas. Instead of double-wide socks, Hungarian children shine and shine their boots the night before and leave them on the windowsill for Szent Mikulas, who travels around with two little devils or one big one named Krampusz, either with sweets and small gifts for the good children, or a bundle of small sticks and onions for the bad ones.

Many Hungarian children receive both sticks and candy, being neither all good nor all bad. You may notice that Sophie, with no boot to shine, was judged thusly. 


At my school later this day, a group of students travelled with St. Mikulas and visited classes, distributing candy and making students sing Christmas songs, sometimes swatting them with the bundle of sticks in flirtatious censure.

Meanwhile, on Christmas Eve, while Americans wait for their fat, red-felted Santa to squeeze through chimneys and eat their cookies to commemorate the birth of the Christ, Hungarian children will actually receive a visit from baby Jesus, which frankly seems like the better deal.

All over Hungary, cities, towns and villages decorate with lights and nativity scenes and hold Christmas fairs, selling ornaments and honey, gingerbread and ceramic, candles and hot wine. 

We went to the Christmas fair in Budapest after touring Parliament. On the left, a small band plays on a balcony on the third floor of the building you see in the background at right. Every night they emerge from a different numbered window, as in a giant advent calendar.

The Pécs Christmas fair, held in the shadow of the great synagogue, was far less crowded and we were less cold with better socks. 

The nativity scene from Barcs was not as sophisticated as the one from Pécs. Feel free to stake your guess which is which on the comment line at the end of the blog.

Brief tangent:


In addition to dressing up the towns, cities are also protecting their artwork and stone memorials from the sharp winter. The result can be a little macabre.


Tangent complete.


Christmas is a time of holiday and community, family and fellow-feeling, and this year, in spite of being far away from many we dearly love and missing a yearly gathering on Whidbey Island with fresh salmon and walks in the woods and puzzles and games in sunken couches, we have felt entirely embraced here; and in Hungary where jobs are so few and money so scarce, we have discovered riches every night in their community halls and schools, their auditoriums and dining tables.


Consider this, for example: My path to the door of the 11th grade gymnasium class was barred last Thursday, as one student gathered all of the class's language teachers. When finally we were permitted to enter, the room was darkly lit with tea lights on the table before us, chairs set forward as seats of honor. The students stood in the back of the class and they sang -- three Christmas songs, interstitially reading poems one by one, until the music was over and we were quietly and unashamedly thanked.


Songs and music are so important in this way, all-embracing, unifying, emotive and open, and every day songs were prepared and presented as gifts to be shared and had.


And we do have people to share with this Christmas. Last week, after spending a few days in Budapest, we met Dad and Wendy in Pécs. Pécs may be my favorite city in Hungary, but we were so excited to take them back to Barcs and show them our lives here. And truly, it has been so good to have family in winter, witnessing our lives and our community at its highest pitch.

We were also so fortunate to have Luke Greenway come and stay with us for much of the week. Luke was my student as a ninth grader, and then again in Shakespeare class in 11th grade and Philosophy in 12th, and now, two months from starting college at Middlebury, he is in his third month couch surfing through Europe. He came to four of my lessons on Thursday and scored a night out with the beautiful women of 12th grade Drama. He encountered three invaluable cultural points with them: One, a fishy pasta covered in a mound of pastry sugar. Two, discovery that hope and excitement for the future is the province of American teenagers, not Hungarian. Three, pity rather than envy that he might spend Christmas in Vienna, or New Year's beneath Prague's Old Town clock, alone.

He is pictured here with 9th grade Marketing, who spent most of the period gathering information about themselves to share with him. This is their happiest moment during the class period.

So, with Dad and Wendy and Luke joining us in the same week and the schools and town dressing themselves up with music and dancing and craft, we have had a very full and joyous week.

At Dráva Völgye Középiskola, almost all lessons were suspended for the week as Croatian, Hungarian, French, German, Russian and English songs and dances were assiduously prepared, repeated without pause until student pitch and rhythm matched that of the recorded artist. Below, English students sing to Train's "Shake Up Christmas" song, while seventh graders dance.

The evening Christmas concert featured several lovely performances, and also Botund, at left, demonstrating necklace and shadow. I am sorry to have captured only eight seconds of the haunting song below, but listen to what you can.

Students were not the only ones meeting for choir practice. Stephanie and I joined the teacher choir to sing a song called "Gyertyák." Barna, a wonderful colleague (Drama and Hungarian) and our Hungarian teacher also, went through the lines with Stephanie and me, and we were moved by the meaning of the words: Light a candle for each and each person, those who you've forgotten, for those you've lost, for family moving beyond you, for those full of anger, and those shackled by war, for those on the street, for those looking towards home, light a candle for each and each person; and the light of every candle will shine throughout heaven. Barna told us the song was one of deep feeling for Hungarians, and in our first rehearsal this came to be so as three teachers openly wept and as I myself, during the performance below, felt in our unadorned singing together.

Our girls performed in far more venues than this. During the week, Dad and Wendy were able to see them perform in the Music School, in the front stage of the Barcs Culture House, in the big auditorium of the Culture House, and in the Szulok Culture House, during which the children joined others in choir, dance, violin and piano recitals. They missed Sophie playing in the Catholic Church, which I restore below for 19 seconds.





Here is the girl's szolfézs choir singing, "Itt van a szép vigy karácsony" at the Barcs kultúrház. Below that, Sophie plays "Mennybol az angel" at the same venue.

Below, the szolfézs class dances to "Santa Claus is coming to town." Note that Sophie, not pictured in the video, objects to the flirtatious flip of the hair required in the dance.

At the Szulok kultúrház, meanwhile, the girls were absolute stars. It was standing room only in the village theater, which again made me re-assess material priorities and use of time in my American life.

In the video of the girls dancing to "Jingle Bell Rock" below, you might recognize Wendy's laughter against the backdrop of what seems to be the Hungarian demonstration of respect: total silence and placidity.

Here, all girls play "Mennybol az angel" together. The final video is the entire student body of the girls' school, and all their teachers, singing "Nox: Eskü." Maisie and Amelia are hidden behind the boy next to Sophie.

We also went to a concert by the girls' music teachers, pictured at right.


And we went to the Barcs Dráva museum and were given a great tour of Barcs history, which includes a Turkish castle beneath one of the Chinese department stores (seen in the background with Maisie, in the second to last picture).


The historian, Marton, is pictured below, explaining the elements of the Barcs crest.





Merry Christmas, everyone. Boldog Karácsonyi Ünnepeket.