cChristmas traditions around the world are loud, proud and guarantee oodles of festive fun.

From cooking specific dishes and decorating Christmas cookies to singing carols and trimming a Christmas tree with heirloom ornaments, Christmas holidays are a showcase for many traditions.

It was a difficult year for all of us, but the Christmas spirit cheered us up .

eTwinning project:

”Christmas Safe from Covid 19”

The Twelve Grapes (in Spanish Las doce uvas de la suerte, "The twelve grapes of luck") is our tradition that consists of eating a grape with each clock bell strike at midnight of December 31 to welcome the New Year.

We make a countdown in the last minute of 31 December altogether and some of us believe that what how we enter the new year, we will do the same things often throughout the year. So some of us meet the new year by hugging their loved ones and some by counting money :)

On Christmas Eve, the family gathers around the family table, fasting food is prepared, and especially fish stew characteristic of our area - Baranja.

It's usual to eat lentils on New year's eve at dinner to wish wealth and money in the New year. We eat them with sausages or "zampone" (pig's foot) or "cotechino" made with pig's rind.

Corina Drugaș and Marcela Urs - ”Traian Vuia” Technical College, Oradea, Romania

Music is an important part of Christmas celebration all over Romania. There is a special genre of music, related to Christmas carols but with more traditional / Christian lyrics. These are named colindă. Although the texts are related to the events of the Nativity, certain elements of the folk rituals performed around Christmas are probably pre-Christian in origin, having their roots in the Roman Saturnalia and pagan rituals related to the winter solstice and soil fertility.

How we enter the new year we believe that the whole year will pass. And counting down from 10, we enter the new year. Also bingo is played that night. We eat Junk food. We pray for the jackpot to come to us:)