Dear guests and friends!
We wish you all to spend your holidays filled with joy and love surrounded by your friends and family.
Here are photos from Christmas eve in Lumbarda. There is a tradition in which we put logs of wood on fire, which is called “Badnjak” in order to celebrate the birth of Christ.
Here is an explanation taken from wikipedia:
The term badnjak comes from the old Slavic words bodar or badar, which means “to be awake” (bdjeti). This refers to staying awake throughout the night to tend to the badnjak and wait for the coming of the saviour, Jesus Christ on Christmas Day. The term badnjak lends itself to the literal meaning of Christmas Eve, with Badnji Dan meaning Christmas Eve Day, and Badnja Večer meaning Christmas Eve night.
There are many interpretations for the meaning of the badnjak, but scholars agree that it is a remnant of pagan Indo-European times that has adapted to Christianity. Today, the festive kindling of the log commemorates the fire that—according to folk tradition—the shepherds of Bethlehem built in the cave where Jesus Christ was born, to warm the baby Jesus and his mother Mary throughout the night. The badnjak may also be seen as a symbol of the cross upon which Christ was crucified, the warmth of its fire symbolizing the salvation which, in the Christian belief, the crucifixion made possible for mankind. As the log burned and turned into ashes, it symbolized Christ’s resurrection and his triumph over sin. Scholars regard the tradition as inherited from the old Slavic religion, where Christians began referring to the celebration of Christmas as the Feast of Lights. They interpret the badnjak as an incarnation of the spirit of vegetation, and as a divinity who dies by burning to be reborn, to whom sacrifices and prayers were offered for the fertility of fields, the health and happiness of the family, in which the rekindling of the hearth-fire symbolizes its importance and center of family life throughout many generations.