Thanksgiving In Serbia Part 3
There is a tradition in Serbia of Slava. Each year on the famille’s Saint day, the family holds a celebration. Inviting friends and family usually to a feast of food and drink that last all evening and is often in several shifts. While there is some questions about the real history of Slava, the patriarch of the family, the father passes the day down to his son. So how your ancestors ended up with St Nicolas vs St John there are only various theories. There are different rules about exceptions in the obvious cases but in general the wife accepts the Slava of her husband. This is typically the family’s most important celebration of the year and migrates as Serbs have moved to the US, Canada and around the world.
So as I grew up Anglican, I have no Slava. We plan to celebrate with family on my father-in-laws Slava but we decided to make our big celebration on an important date for me and my family.
Over the years some of my fondest memories of my family, the various combinations of groupings and sides of the family came on Thanksgiving. Giving thanks for what I had in my life was important to me and I wanted to share that with my new friends in Serbia.
So wine and Rakia all purchased, turkey cooked, the perfect stuffing made by my wife and daughter, adding a Serbian tradition of sliced meats and cheeses, olives, pickles, pickled beets from my favorite stands at the local market and classic American pies ready to go we began a series of three Thanksgiving celebrations. For the day after Thanksgiving since that Thursday is not a holiday in Serbia, we started Friday evening at 5:00 with the main celebration of 25 people. That was by far the largest party with me in charge. Ok well perhaps the wife was more in charge but let’s keep that our secret.
We got the idea from our architect friends Goran and Jelena who designed our apartment to have a waiter. I know it seems outlandish to American’s but labor is cheap here in Serbia. I need to give you a cost of living post sometime to explain why but it allowed my wife and daughter and I to focus on chatting and visiting with our guest and not filling up the bowls with more food or cleaning up glasses. The waiter our friend, Dušan, the owner of Restoran Stari Mlin found us could not have been better. He did not wait for much instructions, he took charge and knew right what to do and everything came off without a hitch.
It was a fabulous party with everyone having too much to eat and just the right amount of drinks ;). People rotated through all evening, some staying most of the night and all we got were compliments for everything. Ok perhaps I am blowing my own horn too much but it was a great time; however, do let me blow my wife and daughter’s horn for the stuffing and The Baking Room for the pies, with out them it would not have been a success. We would repeat the party two more times with out the waiter for some smaller groups that could not attend the first for various reason, but that we wanted to share with them just as much.
Up next will be some notes on our holiday trip to Malta and if there is ever a subject on life in Serbia you wish to hear about, just drop me an email or comment to a post.