People all know that in the month of December the world famous festival called Christmas is celebrated all around the world. The Santa Claus is a legendary figure of the western culture who is said to bring gifts to the homes of well-behaved (“good or nice”) children on Christmas Eve (24 December) and early in the morning hours of Christmas day (25 December). Although it is different in Hungary.
At our university the Santa Claus Party was organised in the afternoon on 7 December, 2016. A well-decorated place waited for the students to celebrate its special event. The party was organized for the international students studying at the university, though, some Hungarian students were also there. The party started at the schedule time. At first the students were all invited to decorate some gingerbread with two professional leaders. It was quite good fun to decorate them and after that to eat them. Many delicious cookies with hot wines and orange juice were served for us. At around 5 P.M the main programs started.
At first the Head of International Education, Dr. Rita Ősz welcomed the students. Then a presentation about Santa was given by “SANTA” who was one of the mentor students. We got to know about the traditions why Santa comes on 6 December and it is not Santa but Jesus who brings the presents on Christmas day in Hungary. After that another mentor student gave a presentation about how Hungarians celebrate Christmas and New Year’s Eve, which was followed by the presentations of the international students. They talked about their festivals organised at the end of the year to show us the different traditions all around the world. At the end a Chinese girl sang a beautiful song from Fools Garden.
To get the party going the students could meet another tradition from Hungary, Folk Dance. So after the performance of a Hungarian student group everybody could join and study how to do it. Before finishing we were also invited to sing along a Hungarian song about Santa together which was a great end of the party.
In short if we need to describe this party we can say that it was exciting and loud and it gave us the chance to interact with people from different countries and to understand their cultures.
Thanks to all of you for arranging that party and also for making it unforgettable.
article by Rituraj