For Christmas too, Merisor?s father, who was a doctor, would bring from his various delegations pork organs out of which they prepared an extraordinary mosaic salami. On Paris Street, two steps away from the Ministers? Council, Sanda who lived in a villa had already done her smoked goodies in a barrel that was in the attic and the smoke got out through a trap door. We would buy pork chest, we would boil it in the bathroom with laurel leaves, we would dry it and we would smoke it. Florica, the psychologist, a colleague of Merisor?s father also had such a smoking room. The building of the Artistic Assembly of the Central Committee of the Union of the Communist Youth was renovated, and Grigore who was a director would bring sawdust from the construction site Florica?s smoking room. We would make homemade sausages that needed to be turned so that they could dry on the washing lines, on the balcony. Part of the sticks reminded us of Christmas because they were the trunks of the once decorated fir-trees. Nothing was thrown away. The cabbage for the forced meat rolls or cabbage pie was pickled on my mother?s balcony in big plastic barrels.

Christmas reunited families and friends around the table and the fir tree, but long before strange connections were established: a director who would take the communist sawdust from one end to the other of the town for the smoking room of a psychologist to whom a librarian brought sausages. (7)

?In our district, there were a lot of bosses who took the place of ordinary people crying for their house. On Christmas, obviously, we were not allowed to have a Christmas tree. It was called ?The two fir trees district?? They took a fir tree and left it on the balcony, fir tree that disappeared on New Year?s Eve. But, in the house, they always have Christmas tree.? (P. P., 143)

Christmas trees were hard to find. My mother would buy fir tree branches; they were cheaper. She would put them on a trunk to re-make the fir tree. A friend of hers who worked at the greenhouse and who brought the branches would help her. It was ugly, but they decorated it this way. I think that, at the time, it seemed beautiful. (I. I., 56)

Once, on Christmas? Eve, some friends dropped in unannounced with some wine and even with some meat from their parents who lived in the countryside. I drank only a little wine to warm up. But, unfortunately, we had nothing to put on the table and nothing to prepare. There was no electricity, because it would often go out, so we could not use the electric stove, and we did not have gas either at the lower levels.  We partied with only a few glasses of wine, drunk at candlelight. After 22,30 the light was back, only it was too late to prepare anything to eat? (A. B., 80)