It also includes seemingly trivial things. Like when children in pajamas plunge a spoon into the salad in the morning and nibble on a cold schnitzel as if it were the most ordinary breakfast in the world. Or how someone in every household solemnly guards their "own" salad recipe – somewhere without peas, while elsewhere the salad can do without them. Yet we all know very well that the one that tastes best is the one prepared at home every year in exactly the same way.
Family rituals are also repeated, which perhaps no one else would understand, but they simply work for us. Some buy a new ornament for the tree every year – maybe an elephant, the symbol of their team, or a locomotive – while others invariably set out for a winter walk after dinner, as if someone had programmed them. And then there is the traditional gift-giving 'one by one,' which sooner or later turns into a pleasant Christmas chaos as everyone eagerly watches each torn piece of paper.
The true taste of Christmas
The Christmas Eve table holds an equally firm place in Czech Christmas traditions. It is set with the same care year after year, whether at grandmother's house or in a new apartment. It includes things that no one would skip – salad, schnitzel, carp, sweets… And also a glass of beer, which has maintained its unchanged taste for generations. For many families, this certain element is Pilsner Urquell – a Czech lager, whose place at the Christmas Eve dinner is as natural as sparklers after the meal or the journey to midnight mass after a long evening.
Whether we rush to turn on cartoons in the morning, decorate the tree in mid-December, or wait with bated breath to see if the Christmas lottery brings at least a symbolic win, it is these moments that create our true Christmas. They don't have to be perfect – it is enough that we look forward to them. Every year, without exception. And perhaps it is precisely this unchanging nature that gives Czech Christmas its unmistakable atmosphere, just like the taste we toast with family during the holidays. Pilsner Urquell simply belongs to them. Year after year.
