Word of President of Slovak Garden Christmas Dinner on December 10, 2016 Slovak Day in March 2017 Slovak President Michal Kovac dies News from Slovakia Slovak Recipes , Healthy Tips, Sport FLORIDIAN SLOVAK FLORIDSKÝ SLOVÁK Established in March 1952 www.slovak-garden.com Winter issue 2016 Winter 2016 It’s Christmas Time Merry Christmas Everybody
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Word of President of Slovak Garden
Christmas Dinner on December 10, 2016
Slovak Day in March 2017
Slovak President Michal Kovac dies
News from Slovakia
Slovak Recipes , Healthy Tips, Sport
FLORIDIAN SLOVAK
FLORIDSKÝ SLOVÁK Established in March 1952 www.slovak-garden.com Winter issue 2016
Winter 2016
It’s Christmas Time
Merry Christmas
Everybody
2
Floridian Slovak
President’s Corner
The warm days of
early fall are being
replaced by the cool
temperatures leading
into winter.
The grass has stopped growing so fast, the air
conditioners are silent and our attention is now
on the coming holidays and a new year.
Thanksgiving day has passed and the left over
turkey is finally gone also and we look forward
to Christmas. The traditional Christmas Eve
Dinner will be observed on December 10, 2016
from 2 to 6 P.M in the small social hall.
I am pleased to announce that the dinner will be
prepared by our resident, Jaroslava Slavikova
who also prepared the October Fest dinner. Jara
demonstrated her cooking and baking talents
much to the pleasure of those in attendance.
Thank you Jara for the finest dinner we have
had in a long time.
I must emphasize the importance of calling and
making reservations for our dinners. Unfortu-
nately, we were unable to accommodate several
members who arrived without reservations.
Please call in reservations for the Christmas
dinner.
The Officers and Board of Directors of the
Slovak Garden extend wishes to our mem-
bers for a Merry Christmas and a Happy
New Year
Chladnejšie dni prichádzajúcej zimy nahradili
príjemné teplé dni jesene.
Tráva prestala rásť, airconditioners utíchli a
naša pozornosť je teraz namierená na prichádza-
júce sviatky a nový rok.
Deň vďaky vzdania ktorý poznáme pod menom
Thanksgiving Day uz prešiel, zbytky morky sú
dojedené a teraz sa začíname tešiť na Vianoce.
Každoročný tradičný vianočný obed sa bude
konať 10. decembra 2016 v malej spoločenskej
hale.
S potešením oznamujem, že obed pripraví naša
rezidentka Jaroslava Sláviková, ktorá pripravila
Octoberfest obed. Jarka mala možnosť ukázať
jej vlohy a nadanie vo varení aj v pečení, ktoré
ocenili všetci prítomní.
Srdečná vďaka Jarka za pripravenie skutočne
chutného obeda, snáď najchutnejšieho za
posledné roky.
Musím upozorniť na doležitosť volania vopred a
rezervácie každého obeda. Bohužial, naposledy
sme neboli schopní podať obed všetkým ktorí
prišli na obed bez rezervácie.
Prosíme každého kto plánuje prísť na Christ-
mas dinner, aby zavolal office a rezervoval si
Vianočný obed.
CELÉ VEDENIE SLOVENSKEJ ZÁ-
HRADY ŽELÁ NAŠÍM ČLENOM VESELÉ
VIANOCE A ŠŤASTNÝ NOVÝ ROK!
Preložila Maria Krupa
President’s Corner
3
Floridian Slovak
Slovak Christmas Traditions
Slovakia is a country of fascinating traditions. It’s sur-
prising how many variations you can find within such a
small country. I would say our habits don’t vary based
only on the regions, but every family has its special way
of celebrating the Christmas. What’s common for all the
people is that the whole family meets behind one table
and enjoy this special day together.
You would say that Christmas starts on 24/25 Dec. But
that’s not entirely true for Slovakia. Because most of the
Slovaks are Christians, our Christmas starts 4 weeks ago,
to be more exact 4 Sundays before the actual Christmas
eve. This period is called Advent. Advent is a season ob-
served in many Western Christian churches as a time of
expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of
the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas. The term is a version
of the Latin word meaning “coming”.
During this period we prepare various Christmas decora-
tions we will use later, bake gingerbread and other types
of pastry, deep-clean houses (traditional period of clean-
ing windows and curtains :p ) and if you are a true Chris-
tian believer you also go to church to get confession, so
you can welcome baby Jesus with a clean soul. All the
parties, weddings, big celebrations are postponed during
this expectation period. There are of course some excep-
tions to this rule. Very typical for this period is so-called
Advent calendar or Advent wreath. Most of the time it is
a wreath decorated with 4 candles. Every Sunday prior to
the Xmas Eve, for the period of the 4 following Sundays,
one candle is burned.
It’s also the time when cities and towns start to prepare
for Christmas. They put on decoration, Christmas light-
ing and organize Christmas markets. December is a very
cold month and you need some mulled wine and warm
punch to keep yourself fit. It also gets dark pretty early,
so nice afternoon walk through the Christmas market
with all those lights and some nice booze will set you
into the mood for some Xmas shopping.
Slovak Christmas lasts three days. We celebrate from
24th until 26th . We also receive our presents at 24th, on
the Christmas Eve after the dinner. Tradition is that we
build up our Christmas tree on 23th Dec, but these days
everybody is busy and people build up the tree usually
the weekend before Christmas Eve. Some families with
small kids build up their trees on the night from 23rd to
24th. So when the children wake up in the morning they
have a special surprise from Baby Jesus. And yeah, our
gifts get delivered by the baby Jesus, not by the Santa
Claus And yes, none of the kids ever questioned the fact
how can a baby deliver the presents. It’s all just part of
the Christmas magic.
There is one more thing you can’t forget before the
Christmas Eve. Buy a carp. Carp is a traditional fish we
eat on Christmas. But it’s a tradition, not an obligation. A
lot of people end up eating a different kind of fish. Before
Christmas, you can buy live carp in a lot of supermarkets
and on open door markets. You bring this poor thing
home and keep it in your bath until the dinner time. Your
kids get excited from new fish and they name little
“Nemo”. They take baths together, feed it until one day
little Nemo gets cooked and served
24th
December – Christmas Eve: It’s my most favorite
day of the whole year. Since morning mums are busy in
the kitchen cooking Christmas soup – kapustnica and
making the mayonnaise potato salad. There are many
variations to the soup. Some people make mushroom
soup other make sour lentil soup. Rest of the family ei-
ther help or just fool around and try to find something
yummy to eat. You are not supposed to eat the whole
day, so you can enjoy the Christmas dinner (See the gold-
en pig). But with all that cooking you usually grab little
something to eat anyway. TV is full of Christmas movies
and radio plays Christmas songs all day long. Christmas
4
Floridian Slovak
Eve is celebrated together with the family. Parents,
grandparents, kids, uncles, cousins will sit behind one
table and enjoy this special feast.
Generally, our Christmas dinner consists of some starter,
soup made of cabbage and mushroom and fish with a
mayonnaise potato salad. It’s food that gets cooked only
once a year and everyone looks forward to it. These din-
ners and recipes have many variations, depends on the
region and family traditions.
Some of the families set one extra plate on the table for
all the loved who are not among us anymore. Some put
coins under the plates on the table, to have prosperous
next year. Other families cut and share an apple, so they
can meet in like this again. Some families pray, some
don’t.
Back in the days, people were more superstitious and fol-
lowed more traditions. On Christmas night, you could
predict who will die or if someone in the family gets mar-
ried. Also, the dinner looked differently. In the poorer
regions, it consisted of the simple soup, richer people also
got fish on their tables. Only the kids in the richest fami-
lies received gifts.
After the dinner head of the family (usually the father/
grandfather) goes to the living room where it’s the Christ-
mas tree. Everyone else waits until the head of the family
puts the gifts under the tree. Then he rings the bell and
the rest of the family is allowed to enter the room as well.
Then we open our presents. People with older kids who
grew up from the baby Jesus phenomena arrange the gifts
under the tree before the dinner, so they have less work
later.
Rest of the evening we spend talking, having deserts,
watching TV and just enjoying each other company. Kids
spend their evening playing with new toys. Some people
go to the church at midnight so they can sing together
beautiful Christmas songs.
25th
December – Christmas Day: Everybody gets up
late after the night full of digesting that yummy food
from last night dinner. Nobody hurries up. Today it’s the
day you visit your families and friends, come together an
wish each other Merry Christmas.
In villages, groups of youngsters get together, dress up in
folk costumes and walk around the village and sing
Christmas songs and wishes. They stop in every village
house where they get treated with pastry, lot of food and
tapas and of course alcohol. Many people also go to
church again. They pray together and celebrate that Baby
Jesus got born.
26th
December – Second Christmas Day: The second
Christmas Day is very familiar to the first one. We most-
ly spend it with families and friends, finishing all the
food from the Christmas Eve. The biggest difference is,
that the ban of the parties is lifted. In many cities and vil-
lages, St. Stephan parties are organized.
Personal experience: Since I live abroad, I don’t get to
see my family that often as I would like to. That’s why
are these traditions and moments with loved ones so pre-
cious to me. On 24th Dec my parents cook together the
Christmas dinner. We have cabbage soup with forest
mushroom and pork sausage. We don’t eat carp, rather
have fillets. It’s my job to prepare the Christmas table, we
always use special dishes, napkins, etc. I hide coins under
each plate to make sure we all be rich next year (never
works, but it’s a cute tradition). Dinner starts with a pray-
er, after which we all eat a piece of garlic that is sup-
posed to keep us a healthy whole year. After that, we
have special round wafers with honey. That one is fol-
lowed by the soup and then fish with the salad.
After the dinner, my dad goes to the living room to open
the window for the baby Jesus and once the baby leaves
we can come in and open the presents. Following days,
we spend visiting families and friends and celebrating
together. I always get like 5 extra kg from all the “super
The Board of Directors of The Slovak Garden Would Like to Invite you to the
65th Annual Slovak Day 65. Slovenský Deň
at The Slovak Garden Saturday, March 4th, 2017
Starting at 12:00 PM Slovak home made food will be served at 1:00 PM
Full Bar Available | Special Slivovica PLEASE MAKE EARLY RESERVATION
Entertainment—Live Music The Annual Convention will be held on Sunday, March 5, 2017. The Slovak Catholic Mass (Priest: Jozef
Krajnak) starts at 10 AM. The registration for the convention will start at 11 AM on the premises. All members who intend to vote will need to register between 11 and 12 PM. Meeting will start at 1 PM
Early Registration (Prepay by Feb 26th, 2016): $25.00 / At the Door: $30.00 Kids 10 and Under: $10.00
Ticket includes Entry, Main Meal, Entertainment For more information and reservations please contact Slovak Garden: