How Romanians spend the Christmas holidays

For Christians, the birth of Christ – Christmas is a time spent with the family, which means parties, lots of presents and joy.

Customs and traditions may of course vary depending on the countries and regions, but in Romania, after adorning Christmas trees and sharing presents, most of the people lay the table with traditional exquisite dishes.

The Christmas spirit is attached more importance in the countryside, where traditions are passed down from generation to generation.

For this reason many Romanians seem to have lately preferred to spend Christmas in the rural areas where traditions have been preserved almost intact.

Statistics show that hotels and guest houses are almost full at this time of the year, with a reservation degree of 90%.

According to Aurelian Marin, chair of the National Association of Travel Agencies, Christmas holiday packages include a wide range of services.

Aurelian Marin: “The Prahova Valley, northern Moldavia, the Sibiu area and Maramures are the most sought-after destinations for this Christmas time. Most of the holiday packages include, besides festive lunches and other meals, very diverse services, such as Christmas carols, trips and other surprises prepared by the organizers. These packages aren’t expensive if we compare them with those on the New Year’s Eve, when prices in some areas could be significantly higher.”

In order to assist the Romanians traveling abroad for this holiday, the Foreign Ministry in Bucharest has launched a new edition of ‘A Winter Holidays Travel Guide’, a leaflet with information on some of the Romanians’ most sought-after destinations for this winter holiday season, including the New Year’s Eve: Austria, Bulgaria, Switzerland, France, Germany, Italy and Hungary.

Also worth noting is that 11,000 policemen, from various departments, have been deployed to ensure security during this winter holiday season.

Security measures have been tightened on 16 national and international airports, as well as in the ports on the Black Sea and the Danube.

Almost 400 radar installations are monitoring road traffic in this period. Moreover, Romanian border police has launched a new IT application to ease traffic inside and outside Romania.

The application is displaying updates on the situation at the border checkpoints offering alternative routes to travelers.

The weather is not going to create any problems this year, as the latest weather forecasts say we are not going to have a white Christmas in Romania, where the weather will remain warm for this time of the year with highs reaching up to 12 degrees Celsius.