BRR.

It’s so cold; I can see my breath as I sit here in my living room. Last night temperatures dropped to minus 20 degrees Celsius. Being limited by a wood stove to heat only one room of my house (and even that room is cold until the fire gets going) has really made me appreciate central heating in America. It’s not that the outside temperatures are any colder than Idaho or Colorado, but the INSIDE temperatures are mind-numbing. I find myself in hibernation mode, sometimes lying in bed where it’s warm or in my sleeping bag on the couch for seemingly endless hours as I stare at the ceiling, unable to muster the strength to be uncomfortably cold until I can do what needs to be done to get warm: change into cold clothes, haul wood, chop wood, make kindling, start fire. It took me over an hour and five attempts once to start the damn fire. I cried. Since then I’ve gotten smarter in the fire-making process, including the purchase of fire starters, and drying the kindling and the wood on top of the stove the night before. The “damn cold”, as I like to call it, has been the most difficult adjustment and has even hindered my motivation to write updates to you all. I know my buddy experiencing his first winter in Alaska can relate. Last week he wrote a blog post titled “Staring into the Wall” and here’s an excerpt that hit home for me:

“Lately my meditation of God in the chaos of extreme weather and our immobility is my new ability to stay still awaiting Spring! That’s right! It has become that simple. I call it Bear theology. Deep slumber awaiting the joy of movement in our bones and flesh when we are able to.”

It is nice to know I’m not alone in my hibernation. Were it not for good friends and an extensive holiday season, I don’t know how I would survive ‘til spring.

Every week since December 19th, I have been celebrating at least one holiday, and it’s not over yet. The holiday season in Macedonia includes (among others) two Christmases and two New Year’s celebrations. This is a legacy of Socialist Yugoslavia, which celebrated one Christmas for the predominantly Catholic Croatia and Slovenia on December 25th according to the Gregorian calendar, and one Christmas on January 7th for the Orthodox Macedonians and Serbs according to the Julian calendar. It was determined that Santa Claus would deliver presents to good kids on New Year’s Eve (Dec 31st) – seven days away from each Christmas, and that tradition still remains. Here’s a recap of my first month in Novaci – from power outages to pipes freezing and from crashing church services to polar bear plunges after a cross, it has been an eventful month of holiday festivities…
Dec 19th: Feast of Sveti Nikola (St. Nicholas) – This day is known as a “Slava,” which is an Orthodox tradition of the ritual celebration and veneration of a family’s own patron saint. The family celebrates the Slava annually on the patron saint’s feast day and the Slava is considered one of the most significant feast days. The majority of Macedonian families has Sveti Nikola as a patron saint, and thus celebrates with house parties both the day of and the night before. I celebrated both the eve and day of at my friend Igor’s house. Both days, his family had guests join them for a feast including fish and beans. No other meat or dairy products can be consumed on Orthodox feast days.

Dec 25th: “Catholic” Christmas – I woke up to both a white Christmas with a meter of snow outside and to frozen pipes: even the water in the tank of my toilet had frozen. I spent the day defrosting the pipes. Of my social circle here, I was the only one celebrating “Catholic” Christmas because everyone else is Orthodox Christian. On Christmas eve, my coworkers surprised me with gifts (which is not a tradition of theirs) and took me out to a coffee bar on the main drag of Bitola, which was packed with people dancing and drinking and singing karaoke. As we were leaving the bar at midnight, Igor pointed out the Catholic Church across from the bar, so we snuck in and observed a few minutes of midnight mass – Macedonian style. After singing along to the Serbian version of “Silent Night,” we called it a night and ducked out early for a nite-cap slice of pizza. I spent Christmas day Skyping with my family and friends, opening the gifts from my coworkers, and making pizza dinner for colleagues.

December 29th: Holiday Work Party - I work with the local municipality and the mayor is my boss. I had heard rumor of the municipality’s annual holiday party weeks before it actually took place. All 25 of us got off work early and headed to a restaurant in Bitola where we were joined by members of the city council, as well as the medical staff from the village clinic. We kicked off the meal with the local moonshine “Rakia” followed by a 3-course meal, live music and I managed to coax two coworkers into dancing the "oro" with me.

December 31st: New Year's Eve – First things first, I purchased a new outfit (per Macedonian custom) for the New Year’s Eve celebration, which the Macedonians take very seriously. This was hands down THE most celebratory New Year’s Eve I have ever experienced. Amidst shopping in the early afternoon, Igor and I stopped into one of Bitola’s coffee bars for a coffee. The usual cozy atmosphere was PACKED (mid-day) with people dancing and drinking. The lights were turned down low and the party lights were flashing. The first thing the waiter said to us: “There’s no coffee. ONLY alcohol.” The New Year’s Eve celebration had already begun…by 1pm. That night, eight of us dressed up and headed north to the city of Prilep for a dinner party at a very classy restaurant. Hundreds of young people were already seated in the grand restaurant hall by the time we arrived. Only one table remained, front and center to the stage and dance floor. The restaurant’s owner had saved it for us, as he was a friend of our group. To say that people in Macedonia celebrate New Year’s Eve with a feast and a lot of alcohol is an understatement. To me, it felt like the party of my lifetime. The 5-course feast put 5-star meals to shame. It was accompanied by the usual wine and rakia, and interspersed with high-energy dancing and live music. How I managed to dance so many hours of the “oro” in my new high-heeled boots, I will never understand. By the time I got home at 5am, I could barely walk, and the firecrackers and ammunition could still be heard echoing through the village.

Jan 1st-2nd: New Year’s Celebrations – For 3 days Macedonians ring in the New Year with seemingly endless parties. My festivities were hindered by hibernation and snow falls, but I managed to make it back to Bitola for at least one more evening out on the town.

January 5th- 7th: Orthodox Christmas – Christmas is celebrated over the course of three days. There’s Christmas, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Eve EVE, each with its own traditions. I woke up Christmas morning #2 to a country-wide power outage, which lasted for 3 days in our village. By the end of Christmas day, my computer and phone batteries had all died and I was left with a candle and a book. I ate Christmas dinner at Igor’s house, which included a feast of salads, salted pork and chicken. His sister attended the early morning church service, where she received an oak branch for each of our houses. The oak branch will be hung in my house for a full year, symbolizing tidings of a long and healthy life: “With health strong as oak, and with a life long as that of the oak.”

January 13th: “Old” New Year’s Eve – This Orthodox holiday is celebrated with HUGE bonfires in every neighborhood. In my village alone there had to be several dozen fires. Around 5pm, families gather around the fire, feasting and drinking and setting off firecrackers or shooting ammunition in the air. One family makes bread for all that gather, and one of the breads contains a coin. Whoever finds the coin in their bread will have much luck throughout the year, as well as the responsibility of hosting the bonfire the following year. After the bread, kielbasa sausages are roasted over the fire while hot Rakia (moonshine) is served. Some bonfires last allllll night. On this day, my Municipality also had a luncheon for us employees with sausages and money-bearing bread. My counterpart Nikolina found the coin, so she will be responsible for hosting the luncheon next year.

January 19th: Epiphany – Next weekend many places in Macedonia will commemorate the baptism of Jesus with a “Polar Bear Plunge-esque” ritual. There will be a procession from the church to the nearest body of water (lake, river, kiddie pool). The priest will bless the water, and then a cross will be thrown into it. People then plunge into the water to retrieve the cross. Whoever succeeds in doing so is believed to have a very exciting year in store. In my village, it is only the men who chase after the cross, and I don’t think I will be challenging that tradition as there is several feet of snow here and I am not sure how I would ever warm up.

Merry Christmas!(x2)/Sreken Bojik!/Среќен Божик!
Happy New Year!/Srekna Nova Godina!/Среќна Нова Година!
Happy "Old" New Year!/Srekna "Stara" Nova Godina!/Среќна "Стара" Нова Година!

Blessings.
-Хана