Crăciun Fericit! Merry Christmas!

The Bucharest Christmas Market  in the Constitutiei Square.

The market officially opens the winter holidays season.

The market includes a food area, a crafts area, Santa Claus’ house, an ice skating rink, a merry-go-round, a train. It will showcase various concerts and traditional performances, and support a humanitarian campaign encouraging people to donate books and toys for children in need.

Entrance to the market is free of charge.

The Bucharest Christmas Market is part of the European Christmas Markets network and gathers 200,000 visitors at each edition.

editor@romania-insider.com

Craciun Fericit! Merry Christmas !

Craciun Fericit!

Merry Christmas!

Bucharest lights

Bucharest lights

Nice Christmas market in the heart of the city.  Products ranging from traditional Romanian goods as typical food, costumes, blankets, traditional Christmas market goods as chestnuts, mulled wine to surprising things as hot beer and so on. What I liked most were the Christmas lights project onto the surrounding high, old buildings.

Merry Christmas ! Craciun Fericit !

Christmas is not a date. It is a state of mind… 

Craciun Fericit!

Crăciun Fericit ! Merry Christmas !

Some says, that ever 'gainst that Season comes;
Wherein our Saviours Birth is celebrated,
The Bird of Dawning singeth all night long:
And then (they say) no Spirit can walk abroud,
The nights are wholesome, then no Planets strike,
No Fairy takes, nor Witch hath power to Charme:
So hallow'd, and so gracious is the time.

Shakespeare
From Hamlet, Act. i scene i.

Merry Christmas! Craciun Fericit!

The Nativity also called Christmas, is one of the Great Feasts of the Orthodox Church, celebrated on December 25. 

Romanian tradition calls for children to go out with triangles from house to house on Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve and Epiphany Eve, and sing the corresponding folk carols. There are separate carols for each of the three great feasts, referring respectively to the Nativity, to St. Basil and the New Year, and to the Baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan, along with wishes for the household.

Longer carols follow a more or less standard format: they begin by exalting the relevant religious feast, then proceed to offer praises for the lord and lady of the house, their children, the household and its personnel, and usually conclude with a polite request for a treat, and a promise to come back next year for more well-wishing.

Happy 2013! La Multi Ani!