Christmas Eve in Bohemia

Christmas Eve in the Krkonoše foothills

In the Krkonoše and their foothills the night before Christmas Eve was the “long night” (dlouhá noc): houses were cleaned, koláče and the braided štědrovnice baked, the tree dressed and the nativity scene finished. A štědrá bába went round whom nobody ever saw; children hung stockings and little skirts near the door and found gifts in them in the morning — or frozen potatoes if they had been naughty.

Among the hand-loom weavers below Žalý there was no tree at all. Instead a weaver dressed in white, sometimes with home-made wings, came as Kristydle — the Christ Child — rang under the window and examined the kneeling children on their prayers before giving an apple, a nut or a wooden toy. In weavers’ cottages the betlém was the heart of Christmas: the looms stopped before noon on the 24th and the whole household built it in the corner. In the mountains there were nine dishes — “and all of them mushrooms”, the lowlanders teased — with hubanec, baked semolina and mushrooms, at the centre.

Try it at home

Hang the children’s stockings by the door on the 23rd — the štědrá bába comes on the long night.

Christmas Eve in the Krkonoše foothills

More Christmas Eves nearby

Sources