The last month of the year is called the Christmas month by the Hungarian calendar.


December 4 - Borbála Day (St. Barbara). Borbála is the patron saint of single girls, so it was believed that if the cherry branch put into the water that day turned green, the girl would soon get married.


December 6 - Feast of Miklós (Bishop St. Nicholas). His reverence was established on Rye Island already as early as the time of the Árpáds, but the custom of Santa Claus walk only began in the 19th century. Santa Claus from Rye Island is a gentle, gray-bearded old man dressed as a bishop, rewarding the good children from his basket, but hitting the bad ones with a whip.


December 13 – Luca’s Day (St. Lucia). The Lucia walk was also a custom on Rye Island. Lucia could only be a man dressed in a white dress, her face covered in white flour. He walked from house to house with a broom or whitewash in his hand. He would imitate a cleaning around each member of the family to chase away all trouble and disease from them. There are numerous prohibitions attached to this day: it is forbidden to release anything from the house, nor can it be sewn so as not to sew the bottoms of the hens in.


There is a typical object: the Luca chair, which was prepared from Luca’s day until December 24th. According to tradition, it had to be made of seven kinds of trees collected from seven regions, in secret, without iron nails. The maker of the finished chair then brought it along to the midnight Mass hidden under his coat, and if he stepped on it at the moment of praesentatio Domini, he was able to see the witch of the village.


December 24 - Adam and Eve Memorial Day, which folk religion calls as Christmas fast, as on this day believers fasted until dinner, and no meat could be on the table even at dinner. The whole family sat around the table together, and the food placed on the table all symbolized the coming year. The menu consisting of lentil soup, poppy seed pasta and beans symbolized prosperity and material wealth. The Christmas Eve apple was cut to as many slices as there were members of the family. The apple eaten together provided peace and understanding among each other. After dinner, the family stayed up together, listening to the children singing (Christmas carols) under the window, and later they went to the midnight Mass together. The midnight Mass, due to its unusual timing, is associated with many beliefs. Among others, it was a favored time for love spells. It was a widespread belief that if the girls returning home from the Mass walk around the shadoof and look inside, they would see the face of their future spouse in the water of the well. On Christmas Eve, the shepherds of the village greeted the newborn Jesus playing their trumpets and snapping their whips.


December 25 - Christmas Day, the day of the birth of Jesus Christ. On this day, people used to only go to church, otherwise they didn’t leave their houses with regard to the big holiday. To preserve the family’s luck, not even relatives were visited. It was customary throughout Rye Island for the (decoratively laid) Christmas table to be only cleared after the holidays. Until then, even food leftovers were carefully preserved. They didn’t take out the trash, they didn’t even sweep it out so that luck wouldn’t be swept out of the house. After clearing the table, the leftovers and breadcrumbs were given to the animals.
The custom of a Nativity Scene (Betlehemes) is connected to Christmas on Rye Island. The four characters: the angel, the shepherd, the servant, and the old man, had already started visiting the houses in the village ten days before the holidays to tell the story of the birth and visitation.


December 26 – the Day of St. Stephen's Protomartyr. The next day, on the 27th, the church celebrates the memory of St. John the Apostle. These two days were name-day greeting occassions in folk tradition, when relatives, friends, acquaintances visited each other to celebrate.


December 28 - Feast of the Holy Innocents’. For centuries, the memory of the victims of the Herodian murders has been celebrated in folk tradition. In Rye Island, even a few decades ago, there was a great cult of whipping or caning on this day. The whipping bachelor visited the girls' houses on after the other, and after saying his greeting, he immitated whipping the girls and women of the house so that no carbuncle appears on them. In return, the girls tied a ribbon to the whip. The one who tied the most beautiful one became the first girl in the village. The bachelor's initiation was also held in several places at that time. On this day, the boy, who has just turned eighteen, was ceremoniously inaugurated as a bachelor by the lads of the village - in the presence of their foreman and the lad-calling lieutenant.


December 31 – the day of Szilveszter (Pope Saint Sylvester), New Year's Eve, the last day of the year. People from Rye island would go to church that day to thank the Lord for the year round help and ask for future patronage. It was customary to make noise, bang, ring ox bells, and snap whips.

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