DETINCI, MATERICE AND OCEVI

These three children’s holidays are celebrated a month before Christmas. All of them are celebrated on Sundays.

Detinci is a holiday when children should give a small gift to their parents to make them happy.

A week after Detinci comes a big children’s holiday Materice. Mother will earlier provide some gifts for her children. Children, with a piece of rope, loosely tie their mother’s feet. She will “untie herself” by giving them the gifts and some sweets. The sweets are the main characteristic of the holiday: usually there are some figs, chestnuts, candies and a red apple with a coin stuck into the apple. Nowadays, mothers add some crisps, chocolate bars and other fruits. The children also visit their older relatives, doing the same things with their aunts and grandmothers.

On the third Sunday, before Christmas, children celebrate Ocevi or Oci. It’s the day when fathers, uncles and grandfathers are supposed to “untie themselves” in the same way as the female side of the family on Materice