The holidays have come and gone. Including 3 kings day, or epiphany or whatever you'd like to call it. During those few days in January there were people (usually in groups of three and usually younger than I am) dressed as kings in the metro stations asking for donations. Apparently this happens every year. I don't know where the money goes, but it's probably something good if kids are collecting it.
Before that, there was Christmas. I personally spent this Holiday at home in Pennsylvania. But I stayed close enough to the day to see the streets lined with large buckets, or more aptly, small, above-ground swimming pools, filled with live carp. Now I say "lined with" because that's how I heard it described before the season actually arrived, and I think this is definitely an exaggeration. Sure, the swimming pools were crammed with fish (I don't think they could turn around in there much less swim at all) but there were only two small pools at each spot. And the the density of these, let's call them 'carp stations' was directly proportional to the density of businesses such as supermarkets, drug stores, and other places with the potential to result in someone impulse buying a live fish. Of course if you don't want to take a live fish home with you (and let it swim in your bathtub for three days to clean its system, which is really the best thing to do before eating it) then there are friendly hatchet-wielding workers to lend you a hand at beheading your Christmas carp. Fa la la la la, la la la la. When you do buy it alive, they just stick it in a plastic bag, and you take it home with it flopping around. Apparently you have a couple of hours till you need to put it back in water.
Going back even further in time, we reach St. Nicolas day (or St. Mikulas Day). This year it fell on a Sunday (Dec. 6th) but the night before is when the fun happens. I was lucky enough to be dating someone who is practically a professional at this stuff. What you do is this:
Step One: Gather a group of friends. You need at least 3 in total but it's best if the number is somewhere closer to 5.
Step Two: assemble your costumes. This is what sets you apart from the other groups on the street, and believe me, there are a lot, so don't scamp on the accessories.
Step Three: Make fliers with your contact info on it, and post them around residential areas that are in easy walking distance from your headquarters.
Step Four: Field calls and set up a logical route for the night.
Step Five: On the eve of St. Mikulas Day, gather your friends (see step one) and get in your costumes (see step two).
Step Six: Travel around to the houses that have contacted you earlier in the week.
Step Seven: Stay in character even on the streets and have a good time.
What happens, is that parents ask us to come and scare the shit out of their children. One person dresses as Saint Mikulas, which is pretty much just like the Pope, and then you need some people to be devils and some people to be angels. The Devils go in first, making lots of noise buy hitting things and yelling/grunting. They also carry sacks. They make the claim that the child was bad over the course of the year. They carry around coal to give to the bad kids, and threaten to put them into the sack and carry them away, presumably back to Hell, though that's never specifically mentioned. Mikulas and the Angels just sort of chill in the background for long enough for the kid to start crying (or in one case, pee himself) and then St. Mikulas intervenes, tells the Devils to quiet down, and asks the child what he or she has to say for him or herself. Depending on the organization of the parents, sometimes St. Mikulas was given a specific list of things to mention to the kid. Then there was usually some singing involved. It was pretty heart-breaking to hear a small little voice timidly singing while sniffling and holding back tears, but then St. Mikulas would declare that everything was OK and tell the Angels to hand over the gifts (which the parents also gave us ahead of time). Luckily, as an Angel I didn't have a speaking part. And I could understand the words "Angels" and "gifts" so I never missed my cue. Here's a picture of our crew:
The presents the parents give out aren't the main Christmas presents, those are opened on the 24th in the evening, and not every family participates in this madness. But still, it was quite the experience. We got paid something like 200 crowns a kid (in the neighborhood of $11) so at the end of the night, the 5 of us went out to dinner and then to a bar. Happy-Belated Holidays everyone!
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