Customs and traditions on Christmas Eve

Christmas was and is a holiday connected with traditions. In the past, these traditions were more intense, and some have survived to this day.

• It used to be said that on Neris day it is forbidden to lend anything to anyone, lest the witches get to their owners' belongings and charm them, their family or their farm.
• Sneezing meant an increase in the farm.
• Before the Christmas Eve dinner, the girls ran out into the street with their first baked cake sprinkled with poppy seeds, and depending on the first man they noticed, this was the name of their future husband. And whether they would wait for him in a year, the girls foretold before supper, according to the number of clearings they had brought for smoking. The even number of clearings meant that they would live in pairs during the year.
• Whoever ran outside in the evening with bated breath and brought crackles for one breath, it guaranteed him a lot of money in the future.
• If the family had a pig, they usually went to it and asked how many years they would live. How many times the pig whimpered, how many years she had predicted them.
• Before supper, the coals were usually burned in as many piles as the grains had. Which coal was the source of the greatest amount of ash, it was from this grain that they expected the highest yields.
• The hostess put nuts, peas and apples on the Christmas table. Each member of the family would take each of them and throw them into four corners of the room, which was to bring home abundance the following year.
• The Christmas Eve supper was usually eaten at a table tied with a chain, which symbolized the family's cohesion also in the following year.
• All iron tools from the farm, such as forks, plowshares and gates, were brought under the table - it made sense. The whole family kept their legs on them during dinner so that they hardened and did not injure anyone while working in the fields.
• Traditional cooked dishes included sauce, pea soup with mushrooms, "slivčanka" of boiled prunes with potatoes, Lenten cabbage soup with potatoes and baked "bobaľki" with sweetened poppy seeds. Sourdough cakes, a round cook cake and a pie with potato filling were baked. From every meal they also took for cattle and poultry, except for a cat, a dog and a horse.
• In Šariš, it was an obligation to go to a neighbor and express good wishes for the holidays. Well, the rule was that the lower one went to wish the higher one, but not the other way around. This meant more money, health, happiness on the farm, a rich backyard, and more.