Celebrating Christmas in the Czech Republic? You might be curious to learn about some of the unusual Czech Christmas traditions and superstitions!
Foretelling the future
Common foods and items are used on Christmas Eve day to foretell your fortune for the coming year. For example, an old tradition says an unmarried girl should throw a shoe over her shoulder. If the shoe falls pointing towards a nearby door, marriage is on the cards for the coming year. Another way to foretell whether your coming year will be lucky or unlucky is to cut an apple in half. You take an apple and cut it lengthwise, which means, not the usual way. In the middle, you see a symbol. If you’re going to be healthy next year, you will see a star. If some health issues may occur to you, there’d be a symbol of a cross or of, how Czechs call it, “červíček”, “a little worm”.
Honey, honey, honey
According to the tradition, you should put some honey on your face on Christmas Eve. If you do so, everyone’s going to like you in the upcoming year. Very popular among children, and healthy for your skin, too.
Money stays with you
This is rather weird but carrying one scale from the carp in your wallet supposed to ensure you’ll become rich in the coming year! The main Czech Christmas dish is a fish soup and carp with potato salad. People usually buy live carp, put it in their bath-tubs, and on December 24 they kill it. It is meant that one should save a carp’s scale and carry it in the wallet, so the money will stick to the person.
Pour lead into the water and read your future
Careful! This is a dangerous one. People used to pour the hot molten lead into the water and according to the resulting shape, they would predict events for the coming year. At the beginning of the 20th century this tradition used to be very popular, however, due to the two world wars there was a shortage of this material, so this custom has been almost forgotten.
The original article can be found at: praguemorning.cz
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