There are plenty of Czech Christmas traditions connected to Christmas Eve. Actually, we can divide them into some parts. One of these parts is classified as traditions of foretelling of the future or fortune. This may be connected to the fact, that our ancestors understood Christmas as a part of the year when the frontier between the real world and the supernatural world was being removed. This made a great atmosphere for foretelling fortune in many different ways and customs. One of these customs which belongs to this category is throwing a shoe. It is a really antique custom so it is not surprising that Czechs doesn't hold it anymore. It is one of the customs of young unmarried girls who were obsessed with the desire to discover whether they would get married next year. No, they weren't crazy, the society obliged them because, in the past, a good marriage was important in our country as well as in other European countries. What does the tradition consist of? Well, the girl which wanted to discover her fortune had to stand and turn her back to the door. Then she had to throw the shoe over her shoulder and if the shoe faced the door, it meant she would get married next year. But if the back of the shoe faced the door, it meant she stayed single. The shoe was a symbol of leaving the home of her parents.
Another beautiful tradition is that one with mistletoe. Mistletoe was considered by our pagan ancestors as a symbol of life and fertility as it was, as a parasite the only green and alive part of a tree in winter and even with fruit... This conception leads back into Celtic times and the times of old Slovans when the priests cut of the mistletoe with a golden sickle during the celebrations of the New Year as a part of a rite. Also, the leaves of mistletoe possess a cure effect and it was used by our ancestors to cure infertility.
Today, we, Czechs buy the mistletoe in a flower store or we cut it off ourselves and then we hang it above the eating table in our house or into our pantry. The people who are in love kiss each other under the mistletoe and it should guarantee that their love will be conserved in next year and they will be fertile. The mistletoe in the pantry should ensure there won't be a lack of food all year.
The Christian conception of mistletoe says that in the past, mistletoe was a normal tree and it was the tree Joseph made a cradle for baby Jesus and later it was the tree the cross for killing Jesus was made of. Later, the tree felt such an embarrassment, that it fell into a pieces and decided, at least, to bring happiness to our houses.
These were all possible explanations about mistletoe and throwing shoes, some of them with a pagan base and the other with a Christian base. In my opinion, it's pretty interesting how we connected both conceptions in our present Christmas. On the other hand, I have to confess that I didn't know many of the facts before I started to study this topic for this article and it leads me to give a sigh about how sad it is that today, Christmas is held more like a commercial feast instead of a time in the year in which we should be together with our love ones and dedicated to ourselves, trying to find inner peace and enjoy of love and our traditions of keeping good life and maybe try to foretell our future.
Gabriela
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