On the 20th of December, German Society ERFOLG organized Christmas evening. The purpose was to gather Daugavpils community with our foreign volunteers, and allow them to show the traditions and tastes from their own countries.
The event had a good participation from the citizens of our city, and the environment was friendly and cosy as Christmas should be.
Our volunteers – Pia and Therese from Germany, Ana from Georgia and Maria from Portugal – shared homemade food, typical of Christmas. There
se and Pia also presented a quiz about German traditions during these holiday, in which they questioned things such as how many Christmas markets are there in Germany, in which day do they exchange the gifts…
We had Khachapuri, a delicious bread with cheese from Georgia, a carrot cake and caramel apples from Portugal, and Gewürzkuchen, a tasty
spices cake from Germany – all homemade!
The lottery for the Christmas basket also took part in this evening; there were plenty of tickets sold, and it was
a great moment when we announced the winner and realised that the family was all there. The Christmas basket is a very popular habit in Portugal, in which we gather several useful and traditional items of Christmas, sell something similar to a lottery ticket for a symbolic price, and then announce the winner during an event. The idea is to provide something special to families for a small amount.
We also distributed the prizes to the winners of several contests organised by ERFOLG, all related to German culture. These contests happened in the range of the activity “Culture Marathon”, in which during the whole year of 2013 several activities took place – contests, quizzes, trips… It had the support of the Minister of Internal affairs from Germany. We would like to take the opportunity to thank all our participants, which made this activity so successful.
We would also like to take this opportunity to announce their names:
- Contest “ Gingerbread holiday houses”: Anastasija Makarova
- Contest “Flavors of Germany”: Vladislavs Ivanovs; Kristine Grigorjeva
- Photo contest “German Lens”: 1st place – Svetlana Smirnova; 2nd place – Irina Apeina; 3rd place – Arturs Apeins
- Quiz “German music”: Anete Vagale
- Doll contest “My favorite German fairy-tale hero”: Kristiāna Zvirbule
Now, on the 21st of January, all the participants are invited to a trip to Riga with ERFOLG.
In this evening, we also counted with the presence of Saint Nicholas and Servant Rupert, both figures from the German Christmas imaginary. Saint Nicholas was a bishop with a good heart, who would present the children with gifts in their sh
oes if they behaved well during the year, on the night of 5th of December. On the other hand, Servant Rupert hits naughty children with his bag of ashes to punish them.
They greeted our participants, and there was also the opportunity of explaining their meaning.
After the quiz and the lottery everyone could enjoy the tasty food and exchange experiences among all the participants.
Thanks to the participation of the citizens of our city, it was a lovely and amusing evening.