Aunt Elizabeth wishes you a happy New Year and tells tales of her New Year's Eve childhood.....

New Year's Eve is quite an event around the world, I know, and it was no different in Hungary when I was a little girl. It was as magical a time as you could dream up.

New Year's Eve in Hungary is known as Szilveszter ( Pronounced: Sylvester) and it is in fact, known as Sylvester Day. This is because of a peculiar Hungarian tradition known as Name Day. In Hungary, everyone's name has a particular date. For example, my name is Erzsebet (Elizabeth), which has it's own day--November 19th. In this way, everyone's name has a day. On the particular day, every person with that name has a huge celebration, and "name day" is a bigger deal than one's own birthday.

Anyhow, the last day of the year is Szilveszter's Day, although this might be unfortunate for the Szilverszters, because their celebration is probably overshadowed by New Year's Eve celebrations.

On the night of the festivities, friends and families would gather to visit, and one could count on home parties where--as with much of Hungarian tradition-- food was a main focus. Again, we had very specific food for New Year's Eve, which we fondly called "Hungarian Sandwiches." These are, in fact, open faced sandwiches that use a variety of ingredients in ingenious and unique ways. Most of these are bought from the market, or utilized from ingredients on the farm.

Homemade bread is cut into thick slices and piled fancifully with different meats, cheeses, eggs, and other flourishes. Particularly prized ingredients included scoops of caviar and high-end cheeses. Pickles, pickled veggies, tiny tomatoes, even small fish were placed alongside other ingredients, with each sandwich looking a bit different, but still "well dressed." All of these are placed on huge trays, and served to New Year's guests.

Another customary dish for the event was the strudel. Strudels are well known in Europe, and on New Year's we made several different types. We had sweet cherry and apple, walnut strudels, and even exotic ones such as cabbage, and carrot. The adults drank port and the men smoked cigars.

Meanwhile, besides the general merriment from visiting, one could also count on the National New Year's Program on television. This was a large variety show that begins every New Year's Eve at 6pm and goes until 1AM. The show was a grand variety show that included the top Hungarian actors, comedians, musicians and dancers. Comedy sketches, national dances, musicians playing wonderful old and new music, singers, acting, orchestras, and much more created an all night festival. It was a quite a tradition. I especially was always proud at midnight; the Hungarian National Hymn (anthem) would be played so beautifully. It was always a reflective moment for me and I think, like eveyone at New Year's, that there is a great deal of hope for the coming year.

Another great tradition--also at midnight---and also very specific to Hungary (and maybe elsewhere, though I have never heard of Americans doing this) was the exuberance of everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, rushing outside of their houses RIGHT at midnight. The streets became flooded with people; it was almost as though some bad omen would strike you if you didn't immediately rush outside. Everyone then would walk the streets, greeting each other, hugging, and wishing luck, fortune, and more to their neighbors. Even strangers hugged and greeted one another; it was as if we were all one big family.

I am not sure if this custom still exists--the modern world can sometimes be more unfriendly, but at the time, it really was about joyousness with family, and the family outside your door.