Mothers' Day before Christmas (Materice)
27 December 2026 · movable holiday — I'll buy my freedom with sweets! Happy Materice!
Materice is an old Serbian folk custom marked on the second Sunday before Orthodox Christmas. It belongs to a series of three Sundays during the Nativity Fast: Detinjci (for children), Materice (for mothers) and Oci (for fathers), the last falling on the Sunday before Christmas. In the morning the children playfully tie their mother, usually by the feet or hands, with a rope, scarf or ribbon. She buys her freedom with gifts, apples, sweets and other treats. The ritual is lighthearted and expresses love and respect for mothers. The date moves from year to year because it depends on Christmas, which the Serbian Orthodox Church celebrates on 7 January in the Gregorian calendar (25 December in the Julian one). So Materice falls in the days around the winter solstice, when nights are longest and families gather at home.
Flying across the sky: An airy, bluish-silver figure of a smiling mother in an apron, drawn as a constellation of bright dots and thin connecting lines, drifting across the night sky
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