Szóbeli tételek 1. - Me and my family - Family occasions, traditions in Hungary

1. ÉN ÉS A CSALÁDOM
I’m Peter S. My friends call me Soma and my family Peti. I’m twenty eight years old and I was born in Ajka on the sixteenth of October in nineteen seventy-nine. I’m single and about one hundred and eighty centimeter tall and weigh about seventy kilos. I work at a company called Continental here in Veszprém (a company manufacturing spare parts of the cars). I work as a quality engineer to be more precise measuring technician. I’ve been working there since the end of the last year. I like my job and my colleagues. I have to measure different dimensions on some head sensors every day and in the end I have to give the results about them to the customer.

I come from a small family and live with my parents. There are four of us: my mum, my dad, my grandmother and me. Anyway, my grandmother doesn’t live with us, but we live close enough to her. We live at five Verseny Street, in Ajka on the second floor of a big block of flats. My parents are in their fifties, they are quite youngish. Unfortunately, I grew up as an only child. I would always have liked to have a brother or a sister with whom I could share my problems. My father is an old age pensioner but my mother still goes out work. My father has been retired for eight years. He used to work as a miner and now he works for a small shop called Etalon-Electronic. He helps anyone who would like to buy any fittings such as LCDs, DVD players, notebooks, etc. He is of medium height, his body is average and he has got brown hair. He wears glasses for driving and reading. He has been a very big instrumental guitar music collector since I knew him. My mother was born in the same year as my father. She is fifty-three years old. She works at the local police station. As she sometimes works a lot therefore she is very tired and anxious because of her job. Although she tries to be patient with us every day. My grandmother was born before The Second World War. Her name is Etelka. She is a seventy-eight year-old-modern lady, because she has got a mobile phone and a DVD player, too. She makes the lunch for us on weekdays. My extended family is my three cousins and their parents. Because of the simplicity both of my parents have got a sibling. My mother’s elder sister is Teri and her husband is my godfather called Misi. They have got only a daughter called Szilvi, my elder cousin and two grandchildren. My father’s elder brother and his wife have got two daughters. They work as a nurse in the Hospital of Veszprém. The elder one is called Évi, she has got a son and the younger, Ági is single yet. All of them live in Ajka similarly to us.

My father is fifty-three years old. He is of medium height. He wears a beard and a moustache therefore he doesn’t have to shave every day. He has got a round face and a bit turned-up nose and brown eyes. His hair is getting grey. He has got a thin body and narrow shoulders. He wears glasses. He has a thin lips and expressive face. He hasn’t got wrinkles in spite of his age. He has been retired for years. He is interested in instrumental guitar music, he is a great collector. He works at a shop although he is and old age pensioner. I get on well with him, because he is understanding and patient. He is good mannered and sociable and he has got a lot of friends. Sometimes he is moody and he has a good sense of humor and he usually is cheerful. He is married and he is a reliable husband. I hope I’ve got my father’s personality. He is fond of shopping and he likes going from shops top shops watching the prices every morning. My mum is very proud of him. My mother is very careful of her appearance. She is as about tall as my father also she is of average height. Her hair is rather red but it changes color according to fashion because she has it dyed. She has got a shoulder-length hair and it’s a bit curly. She has a round face with a pointed nose, a wide mouth and green eyes. She has got a thin body and narrow shoulders. She doesn’t wear glasses. She has full lips and has got wrinkles here and there. She is interested in reading books. She is a good mannered woman and she is witty, very honest and permissive with me. She worries about me if I go out with my friends or I leave home. She has luck, because she doesn’t have to cook on weekdays only at weekends. Thanks godness, she always cooks what I like eating. She is a bit self-controlled, modest and she is always casually dressed. She is fond of hoeing in the garden and talking with the neighbours at her parental home.

Family occasions, traditions in Hungary

Christmas: Our family is not really that traditional. We don’t often go to church, only for weddings and funerals. We used to try to go to midnight mass on Christmas Eve, but when it got around to midnight, everyone was usually too drunk or had eaten too much or was too tired to walk a mile up to the church. At Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, The Saviour of men. A week before X-mas, carol singers appear in the streets to announce the approach of the festival. They carry a Christmas crib with them and go from house to house performing the nativity play. It relates the story of Christ's birth and the appearance of the three kings bringing presents to the son of god. We always send postcards to our distant relatives wishing “Merry X-mas”. December 24th is Xmas Eve. The Xmas tree, a fir or pine, is decorated and children are given a lot of presents. Most families go to the midnight service in church. On the first and second day of Xmas families have big meals and visit each other in the afternoons. On Christmas Day the family gathers round the table to partake of the traditional Hungarian Christmas lunch. Two things are essential parts of this meal: stuffed cabbage and poppy-seed cake. The rest of the meal is usually chicken soup followed by pork chops or turkey.
New Year’s Eve: On New Year's Eve people sit up till after midnight to see the new year in. At midnight we sing the national anthem and drink champagne and then we wish to each other “Happy New Year”. Some people go to parties and dances others watch comic shows on TV. We usually stay up until dawn.

Easter: At Easter we celebrate Jesus Christ's Resurrection that is the rising of Jesus from the tomb 3 days after his Crucifixion. Most Easter traditions are associated with Easter Monday when boys set out to call on their female friends and relatives and sprinkle them with perfume or water. Girls, in return, treat them to home-made cakes or some drinks and present them with eggs painted mainly red, green or yellow. Children are also presented at Easter with either some chocolate eggs or a chocolate Easter bunny and an Easter chick. A typical Easter Sunday breakfast consists of ham and hard-boiled eggs. There are no set dishes that we eat for lunch at Easter. As a general rule however, we usually have chicken soup, pork, beef or veal cutlet followed by some desert.

We celebrate birthdays, name days, wedding anniversaries, mother’s day and commemorate our close relatives or friends on funerals.

Birthday or name day: on that day I invite my relatives, my friends and give a big party. Our small family gathers round the table and we spend on talking, eating and discussing family matters in the afternoon. They wish me “Happy birthday/name day (happy returns of the day)”. My mother usually prepares (or makes cakes) a chocolate layer cake with many candles on it. She loves baking so she sometimes makes at least three kinds of cakes for the occasion. If the weather is nice, we have a little garden party at my mother’s parental home. We take the chairs and the tables out and put the pre-prepared snacks, sandwiches and drinks on them. I always get some gifts; however, I can be happy about the small one, too.

Wedding: people sometimes can’t help falling in love with each other. In case the end of this situation is usually a marriage apart from your childhood’s love. There is an old tradition including you ask your dear’s hand. It is called the proposal. Traditionally the man goes down on one knee to pop the question. If he receives a "yes", the couple is engaged. Traditionally the man buys his fiancée an engagement ring, most commonly a diamond ring. Then some of us want to have an engagement party. Then the couple has to draw up a guest list, send out invitations, buy the wedding dress, arrange a honeymoon, and of course, to select the wedding rings. People can get married either in a church or in a registry office. In the latter case there must be two witnesses. Most people, however, prefer to have a church wedding too, with the bride in white attended by her bridesmaids and the bridegroom in black attended by his best men. After the wedding ceremony there is a large reception where an enormous meal is eaten, the wedding cake is cut and toasts are drunk in whisky or sherry.

The guests are dressed in their best clothes and dance to accordion music. Old traditions such as dancing with the bride at midnight and the bride leaving to change clothes after the dance are still kept at most wedding parties. In addition to it the happy couple traditionally goes on honeymoon.

The members of the wider family only meet at weddings, funerals and christenings. Some of them may turn up around the time of your name day or birthday to say many happy returns but most of them prefer to write cards. There is only one sad occasion, which no one likes and it is called funeral. We usually take a wreath containing flowers to the burial for the tomb.


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