Hungarian Christmas

There is a twist about Santa Claus In Hungary. Our children (and we, of course) don't wait for him at Christmas but on 6th December, on Nicholas' day. Children clean their shoes thoroughly and place them onto the window, and Santa Claus  put little red bags of sweets into the shoes. Bad children get birches, too. The bag always contains a chocolate Santa Claus.

At christmas the little Jesus brings the gifts under the tree. Nowadays Santa Claus comes also at Christmas, I think this is adopting western customs. But it's a great thing we get gifts two times in December!

There are some essential details of the Hungarian Christmas table. We eat fish in any form, but mostly as chowder. Now I made grilled trouts onto my miniature table.

We always eat roast duck or goose, the whole family love it.

Dessert is the Hungarian speciality, bejgli. It's a rolled cake filled with grinded walnuts and poppy seeds. 

Another hungarian peculiarity is the Christmas fondant candy or szaloncukor originated from the 19th century. This candy is wrapped into metal foil. The wrapper is as important as the candy itself, because we use these sweets as tree decoration. The original szaloncukor was filled with fondant, but now it's made with other flavors as strawberry, caramel, cherry, coconut or jelly.

This last miniature is also connected to the Hungarian Christmas, because in my childhood we can obtain tropical fruits only at this time ( except watermelon). Good communism and shortage economy!