Christmas time in Hungary

Christmas is one of the most important celebrations of the year in Christian Hungary, so we are looking forward to some extraordinary and exciting days soon. 

Most of the Hungarian Christmas traditions are gone, but, fortunately, the custom of Advent remains, which is the waiting period beginning four weeks before Christmas and includes the Advent wreath with the four candles (3 purple, one pink). For believers, this means preparation for the most important Christian festival of the year, while it serves as a warning for less religious people to hurry up with the Christmas shopping. The more candles are lit, the closer Christmas is.

It maybe sounds surprising, but the Hungarian Santa Claus, “Mikulás” comes on 6 December, as it is the name day of “Miklós” (Nicholas) according to the Hungarian calendar. It is the day when Mikulás brings children (and adults) smaller gifts and puts them into their polished shoes. Bad kids, however, receive a birch instead.

Christmas presents are brought by Little Jesus or Angel in Hungary, so Hungarian traditions lack the concept of Santa Claus.

It is a simple story: children have to write a wishlist in the form of a letter to Little Jesus, and they receive their gifts due to their behaviour during the past year. In Hungarian families without any young children, adults give minor presents to each other and mostly focus on the pleasure of being together.

Christmas is the celebration of love, as they say, which is obviously right in a sense that families come together in this period and celebrate as one. Nowadays travelling is also related to Christmas, as many emigrated Hungarians come home if they can to meet their friends and family after a long time. People working at different parts of the country return to their families, so Christmas is a travelling holiday for them, too.