Christmas Traditions - Yugoslavia

A little bit of history…

Yugoslavia was a country in the Southeast Europe during most of the 20th century. It came into existence after World War I in 1918 under the name of Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. 

Renamed Kingdom of Yugoslavia on 3 October 1929, it was invaded  by the Axis powers on 6 April 1941. In 1943, a Democratic Federal Yugoslavia was proclaimed by the Partisan resistance. In 1944, the king recognised it as the legitimate government, but in November 1945 the monarchy was abolished. Yugoslavia was renamed the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia in 1946, when a communist government was established. 

The constituent six Socialist Republics that made up the country were SR Bosnia Herzegovina, SR Croatia, SR Macedonia, SR Montenegro SR Slovenia and SR Serbia. After an economic and political crisis in the 1980s and the rise of nationalism, Yugoslavia broke up along its republics' borders, at first into five countries, leading to the Yugoslav War.

After the breakup, the republics of Serbia and Montenegro formed a reduced federation, the Federal Republic of Yugosñavia (FRY), Serbia and Montenegro accepted the opinion of the Badinter Arbitration Committee about shared succession. Serbia and Montenegro themselves broke up in 2006 and became independent states, while Kosovo proclaimed independence in 2008.

An estrange Christmas tradition…

In Yugoslavia, children celebrated the second Sunday before Christmas as Mother's Day. The children creeped in and tied her feet to a chair and shout, "Mother's Day, Mother's Day, what will you pay to get away?" She then gave them presents. Children played the same trick on their father the week after.

Those Yugoslavs who lived in the country fear bad luck if their Christmas log burnt out and so someone had to stand over the log all Christmas night to ensure it stayed lit up.

A Christmas cake called chestnitsa, contains a gold or silver coin and is said that whomever got it could expect lots of good luck.

The Yugoslavs ate roast pig as their Christmas dish and it must be carved a particular way, according to old customs.

Every household had a Christmas crib. According to old customs they went on an expedition to the forests to gather moss with which to line the crib. Also families would have an old-fashioned music box that plays Christmas carols.

MARTA GONZALO

Monday 24th Wednesday 26th November

Hi class!How are you? I'm fine, I hope you too. These days we were working with voc and suffixes. But the most interesting thing was all the speaking you did. You're doing more and more and better and better, I'm really happy, and we're always having fun. You're really a nice group!

Also we had a look to this video because of Thanksgiving. It tells the story of the Puritans, but not the whole (true) story. We have discussed many many times about these things and once we start...  you know. Anyway, the story is interesting just to know about the origin of this celebration. As you know, sometimes we know about something that is celebrated but we don't know anything about the origin, the reason... and things like that. I hope you enjoyed the topic.

Next week we'll start a new topic with more voc and revision and practice. And also we'll start with the project. As I told you,  let's try to upload here kind of info we find, ok? This way you don't need to print or download music or videos... stuff like that. First let's try and then we'll see.

I think that's all.

Be good, have fun, see you in class!

Bye!

Monday 17th Wednesday 19th November

Hi class! How are you? I'm sure fine but a bit tired... probably you're thinking of your holidays, of the presents... and many other thins like that, even more after our long chat on the topic last class, aren't you? Well, I think it was ok; although we didn't finish the "lesson plan" for Wed. you were talking for a long time, that in the end, it 's what matters, don't you think?

First we worked with an article based on managing time; as we said, nowadays out concept of time is changing faster and faster and it's very important for us to manage it well. We read some tips in order to be more productive and we shared opinions.

During this class we also revised frequent suffixes in order to get more words, we will see some more soon and we'll practise a bit more, too. Anyway, here you have some of them for you to have a look.

After this we went into  our project. Still we have to decide the country (some of you) but in general I think you're doing very well, I mean, most of you have clear ideas, although still you can change if you want. Let's see if next week everything's fixed, ok?

And to finish remember to answer the questions on P20 (activity 2.D) .The ones based on the article we read. Read again and try to understand the words you don't know through context instead of translating, ok? As you know... I find this "compulsive" translation completely useless!

That's all.

Be good, have fun, see you in class!

Bye

Monday 10th Wednesday 12th November

Hi class!! How are you? I'm fine, but sorry for not writing before, however, as I told you, these days I've been a bit busy and as you're not in a hurry... once in a lifetime... never again, ok?

Right. These days we worked with BE USED TO, GET USED TO, we completeed some activities and I can say that we can finish with this structure (when checking your HW) Also we had a look to some adjectives followed by specific prepositions (terrified of/by, impressed by, aware of, famous for...) You were speaking for a long time about your habits now and 5 years ago and we continued with our listening-novel as well.

We mentioned the new idea for our project, do you remember? I'll say again this week. It's about kind of "investigation" based on Christmas traditions around the world. You will choose a country and look into some information about traditions and the way Christmas is celebrated in different places. The idea is also to bring a special dish from the chosen country and have a kind of party before we go on holidays. Anyway, we will speak about this and we will plan, ok?

Well, that's all by now.

Be good, have fun, see you in class!

Bye!

Monday 3rd Wednesday 5th November

Hello dear class, how's it going? Well, I guess you're trying to relax for a while after the whole week working and studying non-stop, aren't you? Fortunately you don't have to do lots of homework. You just (please) have to take notes on 4 of the topics you have on page 17 in order to comment next day and finish talking about our (bad) habits. It was hard to find good habits... But I'm very happy with your effort, you're always trying to use only English, you're doing better and better and that's a great satisfaction.

These days we have been talking about habits in both our present and our past. For this reason we had a look to the expressions USED TO, BE USED TO, GET USED TO. We will revise a bit more next Monday with some reading and listening activities.We also worked with some other structures to talk about our daily life. Read carefully in case you have some questions or doubts.

On Wednesday we spent  some time deciding what kind of habits are more difficult to acquire and what habits are the most difficult to get rid of... I think we couldn't come to any conclusion.

Also we continued with our listening-novel-project and again I must admit I'm really impressed with your skills.Very good!!

That's all tonight.

Be good, have fun, see you in class.

Bye