Today is the Day of Three Kings. Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar (in Czech Kašpar, Melichar and Baltazar) were the Biblical gift bearers but I think of them as the “light bearers”. The Czech saying Na Tři krále o krok dále means that on Three Kings Day, we’re one step further on our way to longer days. Which is definitely a welcome trend after the two dark months of November and December.

I just read somewhere that the Day of Three Kings marks the end of Christmas. I did not know that. But the truth is, my parents always keep their Christmas tree up until around January 6 and we just took ours down today.

We would like to wish all our regular, occasional and accidental readers a very Happy New Year!  We hope it is a good one for all of us!

Dana and Jeff

It’s Christmas and we’re spending a nice, relaxing time at home. The gifts were all given last night, on Christmas Eve, as is customary in the Czech Republic. As every year, some people were still gift shopping yesterday. I’m glad we were not among them. We kept busy doing some last-minute cleaning, wrapping gifts, making potato salad and frying carp for dinner.

I bought our Christmas tree on Náměstí Míru last Wednesday. It is 1.3 meters tall and came to 400 Kč. It was shedding needles as I was decorating it yesterday and it is already turning a rusty color. I wonder how long ago it was actually cut.

Getting the carp was a bit more dramatic. In the Czech Republic, you can either buy carp live and keep it in your bathtub until it’s time for you to kill it (!!), or you can have it killed and cleaned by the vendor right in front of you. Neither is a pleasant experience for an animal lover like me, so I had Jeff go out and bring back some carp fillets. He came back with a bloodied bag and ”very fresh” carp, which had supposedly already been floating dead in the tub before he bought it. I tried to believe him…

Here are some pictures of the season:

Christmas market on Náměstí Míru, ended yesterday

Christmas market on Old Town Square, open till January 1

A Christmas tree vendor – choose your tree and take it away, or have it wrapped for an additional 20 Kč

A carp vendor on Národní třída

P. S. I had carp and potato salad for breakfast.

This year’s largest Prague Christmas markets will run from December 1, 2007 to January 1, 2008 on Old Town Square and Wenceslas Square. No matrioshkas and army hats will be on offer, says Taiko, a company that has organized the markets for several years.

You can read more about Prague Christmas markets on our site at www.myczechrepublic.com/prague/christmas-markets.html

I can’t believe Christmas time is coming up again!

The work week is over! Our neighborhood is quiet, people are gone enjoying a four-day weekend. July 5th and 6th are public holidays in the Czech Republic and they fall on Thursday and Friday this year. How perfect! Now what are these holidays all about?

July 5th is the Day of Slavic Missionaries Cyril and Methodius. These two Byzantine Greek brothers brought Christianity to the Great Moravian Empire in the year 863. They also created the lithurgical Slavonic language and alphabet called hlaholice (the Glagolitic alphabet). They translated the Bible and contributed to the spread of Christianity and the Old Slavonic Language (staroslověnština) throughout Great Moravia.
Read more about the Great Moravian Empire on My Czech Republic

July 6th is the anniversary of the execution of Jan Hus (John Huss), the Czech religious reformer who was burned at the stake in 1415. His death sparked the Hussite wars of the 15th century.
Read more about John Huss and the Hussite era on My Czech Republic