With holidays so nice they’re celebrated twice!

The religions and culture in Macedonia combine to provide a rich experience mid  winter. Christmas and New Years as we know them in the Western World are celebrated, BUT the predominantly Orthodox Religion, and its associated calender, provides that another Christmas and another New Years are also celebrated. This results in four consecutive weeks of holidays, starting the 24th of December and lasting to the 14th of January.

The first celebration is Christmas, as we know it in the States and it is recognized and celebrated similarly in Macedonia, but without the commercialism so widespread in the States. By comparison, it is a very understated holiday; one in which there are modest decorations displayed and warm greetings are shared. Then, a week later, “New” New Years is celebrated. A week after that, Orthodox Christmas is celebrated. Another week later, “Old” New Years is celebrated. Thus, there are holidays on 12/24 – 25, 12/31 – 1/1, 1/5 – 6 – 7 and 1/13 – 14.

For this posting, I will cover the holiday season with the following captioned photos:

Though far from home, I celebrated Christmas and decorated my apartment modestly with the main part being a lighted tree in my window.

Perhaps becuase of their wholesome diets, I rarely saw a morbidly obese person and Santa was not one of them.

Christmas Eve in the City Square. A lighted tree and a few modest decorations were more than enough, especially when they did not have to compete with any gaudy commercial decorations on stores.

Above Negotino, the firmament was fittingly ablaze in the glory of Christmas Morning.

The clients of PORAKA Negotino, the NGO (Non-governmental Organization) where I work put on a presentation of traditional holiday songs and gave individual speeches about the holiday. The Mayor attended and the event was covered by local television news.

The Eve of the "New" New Year was cold and snowy. This is a view of the City Square from my balcony on 12/31/2011.

The morning of the "New" New Year began with a mostly clear sky and a bright sunrise.

There was a customary dusk-to-dawn celebration (Коледе) going on in the center of Negotino on this night before (Orthodox) Christmas Eve. People gather around a bonfire and engage in conversation about the past year as well as the year to come. There is also much singing and dancing.

Orthodox Christmas Day is a generally quiet day spent with family. This year it was special in that it had a full moon.

"Old" New Year is celebrated with many traditional greetings (such as, Среќна Нова Година - - - Happy New Year) and some traditional festivities.

On "Old" New Years Day in Negotino, the youth affiliated with the Culture Centre put on a display of traditional dancing in the City Square.

Although it sounded strange to me at first, four weeks of celebration made sense once I had experienced it. During this time, actual work was slow and no one seemed to have any stress because of this. Again, the work – life balance here in Macedonia appears wonderful.