Before traveling to the states for the Christmas holiday, we spent a few weeks in December celebrating the season in Budapest.
First, the girls and I did some damage in the Christmas markets of downtown Budapest and the International Women's Fair buying gifts for friends and family back home. I had my first taste of mulled wine, which was quite good. Mulled wine is a holiday tradition throughout Europe and combines red wine with a multitude of spices (cinnamon, cloves, citrus & honey) and is served warm - because it is COLD outside!
Second, we took the kids to a holiday baking class at Hotel Intercontinental. Caden had a lot of fun with his closest friends making gingerbread cookies and marzipan snowmen. Marzipan is a popular treat around Hungary for children. It is common as cake icing and also for modeling small cartoon and other characters out of. It tastes terrible to me, but Caden loves it!
Lastly, we attended a holiday party with our closest friends at Hotel Intercontiental the weekend before our departure. It was a lovely dinner and a fun time! The party was the eve of St. Mikulas visiting the children of Hungary, so it was quite festive. We rode to the hotel on a special tram decorated with thousands of lights and were visited by St. Mikulas himself handing out little candies on the tram. Caden would have loved that! In Hungary, the role of gift-giver on Christmas Day is Jesus, so the Hungarian version of Santa Claus (St. Mikulas) brings candies and small toys to children on December 6th. The children place their cleaned boots on the windowsill and hope St. Mikulas brings them treats and not switches, although many get both because most children are neither all good or all bad. Caden did get a visit from St. Mikulas at school and received yummy treats.
It was a joy to be in Budapest for a portion of the holiday season this year and fun to take part in another culture's traditions.
1 comment:
I had no idea you had a blog! So good to catch up with you!
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