romania III (christmas eve)

while i'm thinking of it, they have clementines here, which are really exactly the same thing as tangerines, mikans, and jizu that i wrote about in a previous post. now i have yet *another* name for that fruit!

on christmas eve, i'm blanking on what we did during the day. we ate lunch together and did random things that i can't remember. then in the evening, we met a lot of people john and laura know, and then we practiced singing romanian christmas carols with them, and then we participated in an interesting romanian christmas tradition. we went christmas caroling, but not just any christmas caroling. this isn't the kind of caroling where you just walk around singing in a neighborhood. this is christmas caroling to the max.

first, we practiced some songs together, and there was a person who was on the guitar that would come around with us. i learned quite a bit about reading and proncouncing romanian correctly. i caught on to most of the tunes and was able to sing along in general with all of the songs, skipping some of the faster longer and bigger words. there were a few songs that i got pretty well after singing them several times. i was pleasantly surprised that most of the songs were traditional romanian songs, and not tunes and words that americans would normally sing at christmas. i think only silent night and joy to the world were the ones that i recognized. there were a few very beautiful romanian carols that i liked. unfortunately, i will never remember what they were since i didn't learn them well enough to remember the tune or the words now, and we had to give the song books back.

anyway, after practicing for a bit, there was somewhat of a complicated time of finding out who was going on which car, and then we drove to the first place where we would carol. i figured this out over the course of the night, but apparently the people whose houses we went to knew ahead of time that we were coming, and the group had a whole list planned out of the order the group would go to the different houses. it's tradition to stay up almost all night caroling on christmas eve and christmas. when we first heard that they were planning to carol until 3 or 4 AM, we didn't quite believe it, but it was true. today we heard they got home at 5 AM. but i guess it's expected. we were americans who weren't used to the intense caroling, so we only went for about two hours after the practice and got home about 11:15 PM.

so the first place we went to was actually a school building, and there was a 91 year old woman who lived in the back of the school building in a little apartment i guess. so we all stood outside her door and sang one of the songs, but after one song she said good night because she was tired, and one of the romanian people told us she was actually already in her bed, so i guess it's good we went to her first. and then before we left the school building, we sang a song for a man who seemed to be like a person guarding the school building or something like that.

so then we went to several other houses until 11 PM. i can't really remember details about particular houses or anything, but this is generally what happened at each house:
we would arrive at the house in a bunch of cars (there were around 20 carolers i would guess). we gathered at the front door of the house and the first carol would be announced. and then it seemed like they knocked on the door and the door of the house was open, and then we would start singing. we would sing 1 - 3 carols outside, and then everyone, allll the carolers would cram inside the house, no matter how small it was, and there would be drinks and snacks--cookies, cakes, salami, cheese, etc. and then after eating some food, we'd sing a few more carols. and then the caroler who knew the person whose house we were in (it seemed like the people whose houses we went to were friends or family of the carolers for the most part) would offer thanksgiving, blessing, and petition for the house for the past year and the coming year for the people living in it.

me and john attempting to sing romanian carols

it was a really fun evening, and i think a fun tradition. going to someone's house at 3 AM and starting to sing is a bit weird to me. i don't understand caroling all night like that! and apparently they do it both on christmas eve and christmas day, and then if there are too many houses, the day after also.

here's an experiment, a brief video of our caroling experience:

when we got back to john & laura's house, we had some snacks and spent time together in laura's room where i am also staying, and played the bean game together. we actually stayed up a bit past midnight, said merry christmas and then went to sleep!