Do you prefer to look at history from a slightly different point of view? Wouldn’t you like to know what Czechs believed in the past? Open-air museums transport visitors to a world of forgotten Christmas customs and traditions.
The Wallachian Open-air Museum in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm
The Wallachian Museum is the oldest and largest museum of its kind in Central Europe. Every year in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm visitors can look forward to a programme of yuletide events called Christmas in the Wallachian Region. This includes night time tours, with St Nicholas providing presents, a Christmas fair and the Village Christmas event (gingerbread making, Christmas decorations, lead pouring (Czech tradition), making boats from walnut shells)
The Museum of Southeast Moravia in Strážnice
The best place to learn about the fertile Slovácko Region and its Christmas customs is in the town of Strážnice as part of an event called Let us be merry, let us rejoice…, which is organised every year by the Museum of Southeast Moravia (www.nulk.cz). Here you will discover examples of folk architecture decorated in rural Christmas fashion from the 19th century and the ‘village folk’ baking Christmas wafers and making straw decorations and figures for their traditional nativity scene.
Other skansens
Skansens in Zubrnice (www.zubrnice.cz), Přerov nad Labem (www.polabskemuseum.cz), Veselý kopec u Hlinska (www.hlinsko.cz) and many others put on special Christmas programmes every year. In addition to Christmas traditions, the Mining Museum in Příbram (www.museum-pribram.cz, www.pribram-city.cz) also hands out gifts in the historical Prokop mine and visitors can even take rides on the mine train.
Did you know...?
See what the future holds with Czech Christmas traditions
At any skansen locals will teach you how to tell the future, an integral part of the Czech Christmas tradition.
- Slice an apple in half sideways, and if the core forms a clear star shape, you will enjoy health, happiness and success in the coming year.
- Crack open four walnuts – if you find four healthy nuts inside, you will enjoy good health in the year to come.
- If a girl throws her shoe over her shoulder on Christmas Eve, and the toe lands facing out of the house, she will leave the home that year with her loved one.
- Another tradition, very popular among children, is sailing boats made from walnut shells and pouring molten lead into water. According to the shapes it forms, one can tell the future.
