The Hungarian Christmas Tree, 20th Annual Festival of Trees, American Hungarian Foundation Museum (NJ)
September 8th, 2009
Festival of Trees:
in the Museum of the American Hungarian Foundation
DECEMBER 7, 2008 - JANUARY 25, 2009
The 20th Annual Festival of Trees features Christmas trees representing 16 countries, all trimmed by members of local ethnic community groups and the international Sister Cities of New Brunswick. The trees feature handmade decorations and showcase traditions unique to each country. Also shown is a special Menorah for Hanukkah. Countries represented are: America, Belarus, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hispanic-Latino people, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Poland, Scotland, Sweden and Ukraine.
Accompanying the Festival of Trees is another special exhibition - Christmas Postage Stamps From Around the World. There are stamps from more than 160 countries, including the first
Christmas stamp issued in Canada in 1898.
Description of CHRISTMAS IN HUNGARY: THE NATIVITY PLAN
The popular Nativity plays in Hungary are centered around amusing jokes, songs and acts performed by shepherds dressed in huge fur capes worn inside out. The players carry a homemade manger with them or a small house in the shape of a church. Nowadays, it is the children who perform the Nativity plays, except for one or two Székely villages in Transylvania, where grown men present the miracle plays, with the peculiar addition of formidable masks made of animal skins worn by the shepherds.
The oldest parts of these Christmas plays in Hungary are the Latin liturgical plays that were introduced in the eleventh century. The most important scene in the Hungarian play is the pastoral. The contrasts between good and evil, rich and poor are depicted with great simplicity and expressiveness.
In Hungary the Christmas trees appeared in towns in the 1840’s and 1850’s. The honeybread, mézeskalács hanging on the tree here was decorated with designs by Patricia Fazekas, curator of the Museum.
