Three Generations of
Serbian Christmas Customs in America
“Mir Bozji, Hristos se Rodi!”
By Milana Mamula Karlo Bizic 1/7/06
Serbian Orthodox Christians proclaim with certainty at this most joyful time of year that "God is with us!-“S’nami Bog!”" Everyone who comes into the house is greeted with the saying, "Mir Bozji, Hristos se Rodi!" which means, "Peace on Earth, Christ is Born!" and he/she answers, "Vaistinu se Rodi" which means "Indeed He is born!" as testimony to our Christian Faith.
Growing up in the 1950’s, the three Karlo girls (Milana, Roseann and Alexandra) thought they were the luckiest children in the world. After all, they had what they called THREE Christmases!
They first celebrated St. Nicholas Day on December 19, following the Old Calendar. It wasn’t really Christmas, but it sure felt like it. Although all A students, the girls didn’t go to Morse Elementary School that day, as it was indeed a special holiday. For sure they would find their long stockings filled with a real silver dollar at the bottom, and lots of apples, oranges and nuts. These stockings weren’t like the hand-knitted or fancy velvet ones that you see today. It took a lot of fruit to fill up the heavy cotton (before nylons became popular) stockings that had once belonged to their never-thin grandmother, “Baba” Andja Mamula.
St. Nicholas Day was the Patron Saint of their family. Just as St. Nicholas had secretly bestowed gifts on children throughout the world for centuries, he always remembered to leave something for the Karlo Sisters. St. Nicholas Day had the special feel of Christmas with all of the preparations that went beforehand. All of their Dad’s sisters, brothers and their children gathered at their paternal grandparents, the Karajlovich family home (behind the Serbian Club on Sarah Street) at 2532 Larkins Way on Pittsburgh’s South Side to celebrate the special feast day. “O tok, tok, Nikolai je sluzit, o tok, tok, Nikolai je ljubit.”(St. Nicholas is love) they sang as they ate Bakalar, a true Serbian delicacy that Baka Stana Karajlovich was known for, and other Lenten items, as St. Nicholas Day was always a strict fast. No meat or dairy products that day.
On what they called “American” Christmas, December 25, Santa came sometime in the night and left them lots of presents: baby dolls, clothes for church and school, little sewing machines and games. Favorites included Monopoly, Parchesi and the Chess sets with roulette wheels inside with the little steel balls. One year there was also the metal dollhouse with the pink and light blue plastic colored furniture for the empty rooms. They enjoyed hearing such stories as THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS and THE LITTLEST ANGEL over and over. They practiced “Away in the Manger,” “The First Noel“ and Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer” on the large grand piano (a gift from a local doctor) in the front living room in their home in the alley. In the beginning, only the right index finger plinked out a tune. Then to everyone’s surprise, chords were formed, and finally enough experience was gained to add the left hand accompaniment. “Si-lent Night, Ho-oo-ly Night.”
Throughout their lifetimes, the trio never forgot to sing (to the tune of “Silver Bells, Silver Bells”)-“Golden stars, golden stars, it’s Christmas time on the South Side!” in honor of the merchants who year after year paid to have big gold stars outlined with bright lights placed on street lamp poles in front of the businesses from 21st Street to the 10th Street Bridge. Compared with some wealthier communities that featured streets lined with lights, the decorations could be called “somewhat sparse”, but to the girls, their South Side neighborhood’s were ALWAYS the best!
However, “Serbian Christmas,”--- “the REAL Christmas!---was the holiday they enjoyed the most, and always celebrated on January 7. THIS was the Christ Child’s birthday. No one would ever think of going to school that day as it was the biggest, most religious, most revered holiday of the year. In a reversal, their favorite school teachers came to their home for dinner, to help celebrate the joyous occasion with food, friendship and music.
The teachers knew that the Serbian Orthodox Christians followed the old Julian calendar introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. It was the one used by most western nations until Pope Gregory XIII abolished it in 1582. They heard the children share with their fellow students that the Julian calendar was the one used at the time Jesus was born. To them and most Orthodox believers, the 13 days that were just dropped from the calendar helped to provide a buffer between the over-commercialization of Christmas on the 25th, and the Orthodox religious celebration on the 7th, a time to reflect and spiritually celebrate the birth of Christ.
Preparations started many days before January 7th. Fasting for a whole week during one of the six weeks of Lent meant no meat or dairy products. The girls came home to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or tuna fish salads for lunch before heading back to school, as there were no school cafeterias then. Those meals were supplemented with orange or grape pop from their Karlo’s Confectionary Store along with potato chips or pretzels.
The first Sunday after their fasting preparation, their Confessions were heard by Fr. Zivojin Ristanovich and later, Fr. Velimir Kovachevich (now Metropolitan Christopher) at their St. Sava’s Church on 21st and Sidney Streets. When they received Holy Communion and were handed the bread symbolic of the body of Christ, their Philip Visnich Choir sang “Telo Hristos” (“Receive the body of Christ, taste the fountain of Immortality”). And as they walked back to their seats, they couldn’t help but notice their stocky Baba Andja’s chest puff up, up, up, and heave with joy as she watched her grandchildren return to their seats one by one.
One of the most important things to do on Sveti Nikola Day was to make sure that the “psenica” was started in a fancy bowl. Made from wheat kernels, it was always "planted" (mostly only with water) on December 19. Lovingly tendered, it would become the beautiful green centerpiece for the January 7th dinner table, maybe bedecked with a tri-colored ribbon of red, blue and white to emphasize/boast of the great height it had attained. It meant more than just a promised good harvest for the coming year. Bishop Nikolai said that a psenica showed the Power of Life Eternal, now with Man in the Newborn Christ Child.
On Christmas Day, the girls remembered shouts of great joy and excitement when their “Polazjnik” arrived. The first to arrive on Christmas Day was supposed to be a male, young, dark and handsome, who would wish the family good fortune. He was the symbol of the shepherds who left their fields following the bidding of angels to offer praise for the Newborn Child. Most of the time, it was their Bobik cousins, Jules and Joe, who alternated each year, taking turns, while Uncle Jules, Aunt “Peep” and Lorraine waited in the car to take the girls to Church.
The children learned early on that Serbian Christian traditions are imbued with a special reverence for the dead and a deep respect for forefathers and ancestors. Little vigil lights of glass, filled with water and oil were lighted first thing in the morning and prayers were said. They knew that when they carried on these traditions, they remembered those who went before. They remembered their Aunt Rose Zoroya, and later, beloved grandfather, “Papi, “(pronounced “Puppy”) Nikola Mamula.
They remembered how Papi would light the 3 (troica-Father/Son/Holy Spirit) beeswax honey candles united as one at the bottom that he had made and how all present reverently recited “Oce Nas” (Our Father), then waited with baited breath as the Patriarch of the family poured wine over the candles, extinguishing the flame and preserving the candles for another year. The family members gathered there waited with baited breath to see which way the smoke would go. Like their many cousins, the terrified Karlo girls hid behind the closest adult to make sure they wouldn’t be the next to die that year. No worry, an older relative always made sure the smoke curled upwards by a wave of hands.
Those were wonderful times with multi-family Mamulas participating in the rolling of the huge pogacha around the extended dining room table, singing “Rozdestvo”(Your Birth) at the top of their lungs, the younger generation only murmuring through the middle part because they didn’t remember all the words, but they sure came on strong for the ending. In one corner of the room was the heavy old black telephone with the Hemlock-1-2787 number. Next to the phone bench was a huge framed print of WWII Freedom Fighter hero, “Cica” Draza Mihailovich, and then the yellowed refrigerator with the big round motor on top. Everyone loved the hand-tinted photo of Baba and Papi over the mantel.
One fond memory was catching their Aunt Marty sneak into the kitchen to have a bottle of beer. To the younger generation’s amazement, she cracked a raw egg into the glass of Iron City or Duquesne brew! “It’s good for your hair!” she confessed when surprised with giggles from the dining room/kitchen doorway. That doorway, as every door at their grandmother’s 2nd floor apartment at 2716 Sarah Street, had 5 beige linen doilies of three lengths hanging from the top, all with crocheted lace bottoms.
January 7 was the Christ Child’s birthday, so the children never expected any gifts, but the adults passed money to the children anyway in money holders from the Savings and Loan. They had those fold-over flaps with the cut-out hole that revealed the denomination by showcasing the portrait of Washington, Lincoln or Jackson. Their Uncle Joe and Aunt Josie Mamula, with no children of their own, always gave the most. Uncle Joe was a Rigger and boss in the mill, one of the best paying jobs to have.
The middle 50’s was when their Aunt Marty Mamula Belosh bought her 8mm camera to record for posterity the Christmas customs the family experienced. Only purchasing the A-V miracle days before, the novice filmmaker thought she had recorded the singing and the subsequent finding of the coin in the bread by her sister, “Aunt Peep”, Millicent Mamula Bobik.
“Wait, wait!” their Aunt Marty pleaded. “I think I forgot to hit the “RECORD” button. Do it again. And so they rolled the “pogacha”(flat unleavened bread), and sang away again. Aunt Peep with her eyes bulging out much like a heroin in a “Perils of Pauline” movie, pulled out the “magic” coin for the second time as all the other members expressed worthy of Hollywood “Ohhs and ahhs.” Much to the family’s delight and their Aunt Marty’s great surprise, BOTH sessions had been captured for history.
Samojilo & Stana Karajlovich
My Dad, Milan Karlo, wrote about his parents in his book entitled EARLY DAYS: SERBIAN PIONEERS IN AMERICA, in 1987. Seems his Dad, our Djedo Karajlovich (Karlo), had a pigeon loft on stilts in his wisp of a backyard. On Christmas (January 7) and New Year’s he would fire his gun in salute to other neighbors from the loft. Now we only fire the gun after church services to let everyone in Aliquippa know its our Christmas!
Milan wrote: “Almost everyone was a Serb. There were Kosanovichs, Mamulas, Milkovichs, Musulins, Mervoshs, Stojanovichs, Trbovichs, Vujnovichs, Zubasics, Mirchichs, Travicas, Milanovichs, Shatlans and Stepanovichs by the score.
“For the Karajlovich Slava of St. Nicholas, a Lenten holiday, Baba Stana baked huge vats of ‘bakalar’ (frozen codfish) that stunk up the whole house for days before and after. But her dish was considered a delicacy.”
Several people from the Midland, Pennsylvania area have explained to me how they would take 2 trains (Midland/Aliquippa/Pittsburgh) and then board a streetcar to get to the Karajlovich house for their St. Nicholas Slava. They said nobody made Bacalar like Baba Stana! Some of these were Simich Kumovi, as my Grandfather held all of the children. One girl, nicknamed "Tommy" because she was such a tomboy during her early years, bore the son who became the famous US Marine Corps General George Karamarkovich!
I once found an old SRBOBRAN (1912) at the Savez that listed Djedo Samojilo as a Master-at-Arms for his SNF Lodge meetings. He was also Financial Secretary for a long time, too, because of his “fine script hand”.
During the Depression days, Dad Milan wrote: “As eight additional children were born to the family (Dad was the oldest), Milka, Milovan (Uncle Blackie), Anka, Ljeposava, Savo, Nikola and Draga. (George died in the flu epidemic), parent Samojilo had to give up his lodge secretarial job and cashed in wife Stana’s policy to tide the family over.
“Samojilo’s need was so great during the Depression it took him two years to pay his bill with Ivanovich, which event he then celebrated as a second Slava, inviting over the whole neighborhood, including the cop on the beat and the postman.
“The times were good ethically. Everyone was ‘posteni’ (honest). The deals were sealed with a mere handshake. People freely borrowed from one another, certain of repayment or more in kind. Samojilo was known to return a favor or two and three times over.”
Aunt Millie’s Recollections of the Holidays
Milan died in December, 1995, but his sister, Aunt Millie Karlo LeFebrve (90) is still living in the Chicago area. In 1989, she wrote for the Karajlovich Family book:
"We lived in a 2 room, 2 story frame house between Larkins Way and Sarah Street on the South Side of Pittsburgh, near the Jones and Laughlin Steel Mill, where Dad was employed. We had neither gas nor electricity. Light was furnished by kerosene lamps. The first floor consisted of a large room that was used as a kitchen and all-purpose family room. Attached to it was a shed. Here wood and coal were stored for the kitchen stove, which was used for both cooking and heating purposes.