184. New Year's Eve

Some Moldovans have Christmas trees, but they are expensive
and are not too commonly grown, so this was our tree.

This was my first New Years Eve celebration in Moldova.  Last year I went with a few friends on vacation to a couple cities in Romania.  It was a lot of fun, but I am glad I stayed this year to experience the coming of the New Year with my host family.

Raisins, sweet brinza (homemade cheese) and sour cream rolled up and then cooked.

All three of my host siblings and their families came for all or part of the weekend, so the house was full.  We ate a lot of traditional Moldovan foods such as sarmale (cabbage rolls), placinta (thin amounts of potatoes, cabbage or cheese in a disc shape surrounded in breading), Olivia (a cold salad common in Russia but first done by the French)  and salt-cured fish.  We ate a lot and often. 

Preparing for the Olivia salad.

Sarmale - Rice and meat rolled in pickled cabbage leaves.

Poems and songs are important parts to Moldovan culture, at least with the families that I have interacted with.  All of the children in Moldova, or so it seems, have memorized some poems and a few of those are about Christmas.  My host family celebrated New Years and Christmas together.  The whole family gave candy, small gifts and money to the children after they said a poem or sang a carol.

After we had our last meal of 2011 together we each had a title of a poem written by Vasile Alecsandri at our place at the table.  Vasile Alecsandri was a popular poet who was born in Romanian in 1821.  The poems we read were about life, the seasons and Christmas.  We each read the poem that was given to us.

Sometime that night a group of Carolers came by.  They had a drum and other instruments.  One was dressed as a ram which is traditional for the New Year... but I cannot remember why.  They sang a song or two and we gave them a little money for their trouble and they went onto the next house.

The last 10 minutes of 2011 we watched the television as the president of Moldova gave his will wishes for the future year.  Then a stage in the center of Chisinau, where a large concert was being held, a man counted down until the clock hit 2012.  After that there were many fireworks both on the television and in the village.  Then they played the Chariots of Fire song, which was nice but not quite Auld Lang Syne.  So as I was humming Auld Lang Syne to myself I noticed that the keyboard that my host niece has plays 100 songs, one of which was Auld Lang Syne so I played it.

New Year’s Day was not too much different.  There was a lot of eating, fireworks and some carolers visited.  It was a lot of fun and I am glad that I got to experience it with my host family.