Memories from Christmas past
The Christmas tree in the Coeur d’Alene home of Eva Lovasz is decorated with ornaments and special holiday candies called “Szaloncukor,” which are wrapped in colorful foil and tied with bows – traditional in Eva’s native Hungary. Some of them are from her grandmother’s tree.
Eva was born in Budapest in 1945 as World War II ended and she remembers the lean times that followed the conflict. In subsequent years, Hungary endured a totalitarian, communist government, marked by a 1956 revolt. The rebellion was short-lived and unsuccessful, and the subsequent years were hard, she says.
“We ate potatoes and then potatoes,” Eva remembers. “That Christmas, there were no trees to be had. My grandmother – I lived with her – was able to get some evergreen bows and she put them together in a pot to look like a tree and we decorated them.”
Eva left Hungary in 1970 to visit her married sister who was living in California and, at her family’s urging, stayed. She married, and she and her husband raised two sons and a daughter.
Two and a half years ago, after the death of her husband, she, with her daughter and grandson, moved to Coeur d’Alene to be near Eva’s sons.
The tree has been up and decorated in the Lovasz home since just after Thanksgiving, very different from the tradition Eva remembers from her Budapest childhood.
The Advent season that precedes Christmas was marked by several special feasts, and the most important was St. Nicholas Day on Dec. 6. Eva explains, “The Hungarian Santa was called Saint Mikulas, pronounced Me-ku-lash.”
According to legend, the real Saint was an early bishop who traveled about caring for the poor. The Santa tradition is rooted in this story of the kindly bishop.
Eva says that on Dec. 6, “Children put a pair of well-cleaned shoes or boots inside the window or beside the door of their homes. If the child has been good, the boot will be filled with goodies – candy, tangerines, walnuts, apples, dates and chocolates.
“If the child has been bad, the boot will contain just a switch or twig and, since no child is all good or all bad, most will get the switch and a treat.”
She adds that twigs now are often sprayed with gold paint.
Other pre-Christmas traditions are very different between her childhood in Hungary and her grandson’s Christmases in the United States.
“In Hungary, children write their letters not to Santa Claus but to Baby Jesus or ‘Jezuska,’ ” she says. She pronounces the name “Yezu-ka,” explaining that the “ka” is the diminutive, meaning “baby.”
“The children write their letters, requesting gifts and leave them on the window sill to be picked up by angel messengers while the children are sleeping. The angels, otherwise known as parents and grandparents, deliver the notes to the baby Jesus,” Eva explains.
Santa and his reindeer do not bring the presents during the night. That job also is left to the angels, who not only bring the gifts but the tree, as well.
Eva says that the tree was not only decorated with ornaments and Szaloncukor, but among them were candles and sparklers – like those used on the Fourth of July. According to Eva, the candles and sparklers have been discontinued because of fire danger.
She recalls the excitement: “On Christmas Eve, the children were banished from the room where the tree will be put up and the gifts put under it. Children are warned that if they peek, the angels and Jesuska will fly away, taking the gifts with them. Once the tree and gifts are ready, the parents ring a little bell and the children run in to receive their gifts.”
Eva says that gifts were usually things that were needed, such as warm gloves, caps and scarves. She believes that many children, in this country today, want and receive far more than they really need or may be good for them.
One thing is much the same for Eva as it was in her childhood.
“I love the seasons,” she says. “It seems more like Christmas here than in California. The climate is much like that of Budapest.”
She and her family like Coeur d’Alene and Eva would not go back to San Diego – although “I nearly froze the first winter,” she says.
Most important of all in Hungary was the togetherness Christmas fostered, celebrated with traditional foods.
“Our Christmas dinner usually featured fish, especially fried fish, and a very special Hungarian fish soup, made with fish broth or stock, onion, green pepper and tomato and paprika. A large slice or filet of fish was served in the bowl.
“A special treat might be a roast duck.
“For dessert there were always lots of cookies and a rich, soft pastry, known as ‘Beiglie,’ filled with raisins, walnuts or poppy seeds. It’s rolled up like a jelly roll and served in slices.”
Eva particularly loved the brightly wrapped candies, and she knew that her grandmother, before Christmas, had them hidden someplace in the house.
“And when I found them,” she says, “I would take a few and eat them. I loved chocolate and Szaloncukor had chocolate on the outside with marzipan, raspberry, orange or other flavored jellies inside.”
She chuckles: “To hide what I had done, I would replace the candy with sugar cubes and rewrap them.”
Eva is still very fond of “Szaloncukor,” and buys them from an import shop for decorating the tree and especially for eating. She says the number of the candies on the tree shrinks each day and may be gone before Christmas.