Every winter break since my freshman year I have been traveling back to Hungary, and Budapest to spend the winter holidays and celebrate Christmas, and New Year with my family. Unfortunately, this year I did not go back, instead, I have been traveling within the US and spent my Christmas and New Year with my host family in Richmond. It was a very nice experience even though it was pretty different from what I am used to. During my winter break, I managed to meet with my community partner over Zoom a few times. Those classes were much less formal than the ones we used to have on campus, however, it was extremely fascinating to see Szonja in Budapest, at home with her family. It was very interesting to hear her speaking with her family members in Hungarian and see their interactions when they accidentally came into the room during our meeting. One of the classes happened to be on Christmas day, and we dedicated it entirely to talking about Hungarian Christmas traditions, celebrations, and Christmas-related vocabulary.
We have worked on reading and translating the text which I have attached to this post. It was very interesting to see the similarities between Hungarian and Russian traditions for Christmas. Even though in Russia we celebrate Christmas according to the Orthodox calendar - January 7th, we still share some of the traditions in common. For example, Hungarians also go to church for the evening mass on Christmas Eve, have a big family lunch or dinner, and spend most of the time with family, and friends. I learned from the text that Hungarians have some food specialties as well - walnut and poppy seed bagels. You can find different types of those at the Christmas markets where they are very popular among locals and tourists. It was very interesting to learn about Christmas traditions by translating the text from Hungarian to English. I believe it gives a more objective and clear perspective.
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