Czechmatediary

The first tangible sign of Christmas was our (the kids) letter to Jesus. Yes, that’s right, in the Czech Republic Jesus brings the presents while Santa is on vacation or something ( I also remember bragging to my fellow classmates at school when I was about 7 years old that I saw Jesus’ feet just as he was flying out of our apartment window). Anyhow, when my brother and I were really little and didn’t know how to write yet, we would draw out the list of things we wanted for Christmas. My list always looked something like this:
1) dog
2) cat
3) Barbie

And I would usually end up getting a bunch of clothes.

Second, getting the Christmas tree. I don’t remember much about that. The only thing I remember is how frustrated my parents would get trying to fit the stem into the tree stand. They kept trimming the stem down but somehow it never seemed to fit! But that is probably just a universal law….

Third, getting the carp. (Speaking of carp, my husband loves this one. He says, “Honey, here in the U.S. carp is actually used as bait to catch real fish…”) That event I remember quite vividly. Since I am a big animal lover, going out and buying a carp was a stressful day for me. I remember feeling sorry for those fish at the seller’s stand, how stuffed they all were in this one tiny bucket with about 6 ounces of water in it. Once we picked the “lucky” one we took it home and put it in the bath tub. I kept going back into the bathroom, checking on that poor guy who was just helplessly swimming in there, not knowing what was about to happen. The big question of that time of year was who was actually going to kill the fish??? And honestly I repressed that experience out of my memory.Was it usually my mum? Or my dad? Or my grandma??? Maybe THAT’S what Santa did- killed the carp!!! I don’t know…

Forth. Getting the presents. The gift exchange in the Czech Republic happens on the Christmas Eve, which I prefer doing up to this day. It just feels right. So what happens is that “Jesus” arranges the presents under the tree while everyone is gone, waiting in their rooms until he rings a bell. Once that happens, it gets crazy. Kids run out of their rooms and feverishly start opening up their presents. Mind you, back in my days we would get about 3 presents each, none of this crazy 100 presents-per-person mania like it is in the US (and now probably in the Czech republic as well). After we unpacked our precious presents we had our traditional festive Christmas dinner: the Carp soup and a fried carp with a traditional potato salad (my mom makes the best one). And for a desert we had a variety of Christmas cookies.

A lot of us “experienced Czechs” still remember the good old communist stores: Tuzex and Eso. They weren’t just some regular stores. They were the SUPER-SPECIAL stores. They were so special that they had their own currency called bony! Tuzex had toys/things from the ‘evil’ capitalist empire of Western Europe such as the true barbies or walkmans. The Eso store sold food items imported from the traitor’s land such as Wrigley’s chewing gums, peanut butter or Coca-Colas – great stuff!!!
Anyhow, my grandma’s Christmas treat for us was to spend a big part of her retirement money and exchange them for bony in order to buy us each a can of Coca-Cola in Eso. So at the end of the already awesome Christmas Eve I would go to our fridge, opened it and there it was - a chilled can of Coke….I was in heaven!! Even to this day when I drink MY OWN CAN OF COKE (!!!) I feel like a queen…