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Christmas Village at Estonian Open Air Museum

20.12.2009 - 12:01 |  Looduskalender
Photo: Arne Ader
Text: Piret Järvan, Estonian Open Air Museum
Translation: Liis
 
December sun.
 
Christmas village traditions and preparations are shown on December 19 and 20, between 11am and 4 pm, at the Estonian Open Air Museum at Rocca al Mare, Tallinn.
Find out how Christmas was celebrated in the old threshing barn, take part in Christmas preparations as they were during the 1930ies, and see orthodox Christmas! A sailor just returned from Cuba tells about Christmas customs in faraway countries. There will be  singing of traditional Christmas songs, we will foretell the future by pouring “lead luck”, and there will be soothsayings and candle-making. You can enjoy concerts in the Sutlepa chapel, and the Christmas greetings post office is open. There will be trips by horse-drawn carriages or sleighs, whichever suits the weather. A genuine Estonian Father Christmas moves around with his mischievious billy-goat in tow.
The museum’s Kolu Inn offers tempting Christmas dishes, and folk art handicraft can be bought in the museum’s handicraft shop and at the Christmas market.
 
Christmas Village programme, December 19 - 20, in the Estonian Open Air Museum
Sassi-Jaan’s farmhouse – small Christmas market.
In the cosy threshing room you can find heartwarming gifts for your dearest. Christmas bread baked by hand, warm socks, candles and wooden toys – something to suit everyone’s taste and purse. A beautiful selection of handicraft is also sold at the museum shop.

Köstriaseme farmhouse – St Thomas Day: waiting for Christmas.
The pre-Christmas time starts with cleaning the rooms and preparing Christmas food. The older farm mistress is making a “Soot Thomas” from straw and rags. Into Thomas she ties bad luck and illnesses, slovenliness and dirt, and then carries the image away from home - to the neighbour’s door. The mistress will be pleased to teach those who step in to her how to tie bad luck and grievances into a Black Thomas. The daughters of the family wait and long for the arrival of the festive season: they sing old runic verse songs telling about the immediate coming of Christmas and they talk about the customs of Toomapäev, St Thomas Day.
Pulga farmhouse –  Christmas preparations of the farmhouse family in the old threshing house.
There are tempting smells from Christmas dishes on the table: pig’s head with beans, turnips, cabbage and carrots.
Old mistress Mai fills groats sausages and keeps an eye on the door so that no village boys get to throw in a “sausage bender” , a crooked stick. Mistress Liisi sets the Christmas table. In between she tells Christmas tales that her now dead grandmother has told her as a child.
Master Juhan has “brought in Christmas” with the spruce tree, and is eager to have Christmas games.
 
Härjapea farmhouse – Christmas Eve preparations as in the 1930ies.
Härjapea farmhouse mistress Maret is overjoyed. Once again in a long time her café-owner son has come to visit  from Tallinn with his girl friend, and they have a nice surprise for the home people. Together Christmas Eve is prepared – ginger snaps are baked and Christmas decorations made.

Aarte farmhouse – Seafarers’ Christmas tales.

The master of Aarte farmhouse, Rudolf, has returned home for Christmas from a long sea voyage. This time he came from sugar transports from Cuba, but he has also been to Africa, Asia and other exciting places. Rudolf tells quite unbelievable tales about how Christmas is celebrated by other people. And he has even seen countries where this holiday isn’t acknowledged at all.

Kolga farmhouse – Orthodox Christmas on Hiiumaa.

Changes in religious life have reached Hiiumaa. Besides the Lutheran church orthodox belief has become more and more familiar to the inhabitants. In the Kolga farmhouse the daughter of the deceased pastor of the Kõrgessaare orthodox church lives with her mother and her teacher husband. They make preparations for tomorrow’s service. Daughter Liisa bakes and cooks tempting dishes for the Christmas feast at the church. Husband Taaniel crafts gifts for poor orphaned children. The pastor’s widow reminisces about the times when she and her husband came to Hiiumaa to establish the church.
 
Roosta farmhouse - Christmas preparations of the village healer woman.
Mari is a highly valued healer and soothsayer in the village. She knows how to cure the cold sickness, how to manage stomach pains and the bends. Mari also knows preparations against love sickness and the evil eye.
On the threshold to Christmas the wisest woman in the village remembers her grandmother’s teachings and sees what the New Year may bring. It is worthwhile to bring the lead luck poured in Sepa farmhouse to her; Mari can tell much from it.
 
Kuie school – Singing of Christmas songs; post office for Christmas greetings.
The schoolmaster’s family have received the new hymn book authored by Friedrich Brandt as a gift from the Järva-Jaan parish priest. Together the family studies the book to see if it contains only newly written hymns about the birth of Christ or if old familiar songs are there too. For Christmas the schoolmaster’s family have also opened a little post office where it is possible to write your Christmas greetings on a pretty card, with a pen and ink, and send it on the way to your beloved ones abroad. In the living room a gift for the parish priest is being crafted with help from the organist’s wife: a many-coloured rag mat. Trinkets of yarn are made too to decorate the Christmas spruce tree in the chapel.
 
Sepa farmhouse – Making candles and pouring lead luck.
The Sepa farmhouse family have their fill of work and more – Jakob must shoe several of the villagers’ horses before Christmas. For this he must also forge the horseshoes. But the work doesn’t advance  very fast, because before Christmas village people crowd at Jakob’s to know their future. Together with them the smith pours “lead luck”. In the house, Jakob’s mother Meeri melts mutton fat to make candles from it. At Christmas even the lowliest people who otherwise content themselves with light from burning wood splinters want this flickering light source for their homes.

Rusi farmhouse - Antsla housekeeping school announces!

The successful graduates from the cooking courses of the Antsla housekeeping school offer delicious Christmas dishes and drinks at modest prices in the cafeteria set up in the Rusi farmhouse! Preparing Christmas food is one of the tasks for the students in the course.
Be sure to fill in the evaluation questionnaire where you can tell if the dishes please you as well as if professional cooks in a restaurant had prepared them, or if the cooks maybe should train some more in their home kitchens.
This decides whose diploma will have a letter of praise and who will have to make do with just a certificate for having attended the course.
 
 
Concerts in the Sutlepa chapel
Saturday
11.00 Mixed choir of Tallinn’s German Gymnasium
12.00 Kaleva mixed choir
13.00 Mixed choir of Tallinn’s German Gymnasium
14.00 Kaleva mixed choir
15.00 Ellerheina children’s choir
 
Sunday
12.00 and 14.00 Mixed choir of Tallinn’s German Gymnasium
15.00 Christmas sermon. Reverend Toomas Paul
 
As always there will be tours in horse-drawn carriages, and Christmas dishes to taste in the Kolu Inn

Looking forward to meet all in the Estonian Open Air Museum’s Christmas Village!


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