Weekend preparation for Christmas, Week 187

Yes, you read that right, I didn't make a typo...
For Christmas 🙂
As I stated in some earlier post, I am an Orthodox, whose church celebrates according to the Julian calendar, so Christmas is celebrated tomorrow, for all Christians who did not celebrate it on December 25.

In addition to the Serbian Orthodox Church, tomorrow Christmas will also be celebrated by:
The Russian Orthodox Church, the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Holy Mountain, the ancient calendarists in Greece and the Egyptian Copts.

And when we celebrate Christmas, we have several customs, like probably other Orthodox and Catholics as well...
In addition to buying and giving gifts, special attention is paid to those old customs.

Christmas tree
After which today's day, is called Christmas Day.
In larger cities, people go shopping and buy a Christmas tree, which is brought into the home in the evening. In villages and rural areas, where there is a lot of forest, on Christmas morning, people go to the forest and cut Christmas tree there. This was my favorite Christmas activity when I was a child, at my grandparents' in the village...

There is a custom of lighting the Christmas tree on Christmas morning, when the first visitor of the day, the so-called "Položajnik", enters the house. That is why Christmas tree is an important part of Orthodox Christmas.

Feast
The feast is lenten on Christmas Day. Believers who have fasted for all 40 days finish their fast today and from tomorrow they eat meat on the table.
We always eat some snacks during the day (hazelnuts, walnuts, peanuts, cranberries, raisins, prunes, dried apricots or figs), we are baking a pumpkin, we eat compote and for dinner we have fish, beans and various types of lean pies and cakes.

In the evening, "Pečenica"(pig on a spit), which was baked on Christmas Day, is usually brought into the house, it is usually a pig or a lamb on a spit, which will be on the table the next day, for Christmas lunch.

To prepare for Christmas, I have several obligations, which I dealt with today:
Tidying up the house, vacuuming, dusting, window wiping.
Going shopping, picked a Christmas tree buying supplies for tonight's dinner and tomorrow's Christmas lunch.

Organization of tomorrow's lunch, procurement and preparation of the pig on the spit (I agreed this with my cousin who has his own pig farm and who accepted that in addition to the pig on the spit for his table, he would also roast one pig for our table).

The pig was roasted and left to it's getting cold, and it won't be touched today, because it's fasting.
Only tomorrow for lunch, the pig is on the table.

The church
Before midnight, believers go to the church, where the liturgy is held, and immediately after midnight, the Christmas tree is lit, marking Christmas.
On Christmas morning, after breakfast when the "Položajnik" has done his work, we go back to the church for the liturgy, and after that, we go home (or to visit the closest family and friends 🙂), for Christmas lunch.

If I take some photos from the church celebration, dinner this evening or tomorrow's Christmas lunch, I'll share them in another post, now I'm contacting you to answer the topic that @galenkp gave us:

What weekend activities are you getting involved with this weekend and why?

From everything described, it is clear what I will do this weekend.
After preparing for the celebration, celebrate Christmas with family and closest friends.

Thank you for stopping by my post and I hope you enjoyed the photos and the story I shared with you

All photos are my property, taken with a mobile phone (except for this one with a pig on a spit that my cousin sent me, when he took the pig out of the oven🙂