ESTONIA: A museum near Tallinn promotes the crafts of a traditional Estonian Christmas

At the Rocca-Al-Mare Open Air Museum near Tallinn, Estonians are invited to join in the activities and learn the the crafts of a traditional country Christmas. Thousands of people come to the country's biggest Open Air Museum to see the real story of an Estonian peasant Christmas in 18-20th century vernacular buildings set in a beautiful forest park of 80 hectares. Country folk, played by the museum workers, live in the museum houses and demonstrate craft skills to visitors. "This is a nice tradition and it's also a great variance to the usual Christmas rush around. The real Christmas feeling gets lost easily within the presents chasing, red gnome hats everywhere and other gimcrackery. But here it's all much more quiet and the right Christmas feeling comes to your heart," the organiser of the exhibition, Maarja Kõuts said. Visitors can listen to Christmas tales, play traditional Christmas games, listen to and join in with Christmas songs. Amongst the most popular demonstrations is "grandmother" making real blood sausages, a very traditional Christmas food in Estonia. Everybody can watch and later have the opportunity to taste the seasonal food. It was customary to eat large meals on Christmas Eve and Christmas Night. To have plenty of Christmas food at home symbolically meant enough food for the whole coming year. According to an old tradition, seven to twelve different meals were served on Christmas Night. Traditional Estonian Christmas food was pork with sauerkraut, white and blood sausage. A traditional Santa Claus also walks the village. He dresses in a costume made of sheep skins, a centuries-old Estonian tradition. One of the most important and widespread Estonian peasant traditions, as in other Northern and Central European countries, was the habit of bringing home Christmas straw. Although connected with the biblical legend of Jesus Christ, the tradition of Christmas straw might also have pagan origins. In Estonia, straw and sometimes hay, was taken into the house for the whole festive season, becoming a playground for children and also being used for decoration. A special seasonal bread called Christmas barrow was baked. On the holy night, the domestic animals in the barn were also offered Christmas bread. Home-brewed ale and mead were the most popular Christmas drinks. Christmas as an official holiday was banned during the Soviet occupation. The traditional Christmas season was limited to New Year's Eve and New Year's Day celebrations. Despite these restrictions, Christmas was celebrated unofficially at Christmas Eve church services. After attending the Christmas service, families would light candles on the graves of relatives. This became a peaceful nationwide protest against Soviet ideology and atheist propaganda. Christmas Day itself, an ordinary workday, was celebrated at home in private with family and close friends. est/jrc

ITN Source | November 22, 2006

Tags:. .banned. .dresses. .skins. .invited. .although