Reaction to the Lottery

That was a strange story, because the title had suggested the story would about something positive. This was not the case. When I saw the title I thought that would be a story about somebody who won the lottery and this was good for him or her. Because nowadays if somebody wins the lottery, it is very good, because we can win a car, money, travel or something. In this story lottery was not equal with these things. I did not think that the winner would take anything just a lot of stones onto his body.

New Year's Eve is a very special day in European Culture. People have parties either at home or go out and enjoy themselves at restaurants or simply in the streets with friends around. I have tried all the above possibilities. What I like best is a mixture of all these. Last year we started a party at home then we went out to celebrate the coming of the New Year in the street to finish the whole celebration at a disco sometime in the morning of New Year's Day.

Shopping for Christmas is both fun and hard work. Finding out what to buy for the people I feel close to is always a pleasant task for me. They say I am quite creative at surprising them with something very special. I fully agree with the statement that both giving and receiving presents are great. Nevertheless I prefer giving to being given.

Every year, by the end of the fall semester the students of the English Department of Miskolc University organize a Christmas party. Usually it is great fun and a good occasion for both students and members of staff to socialize and have a good time together. This year I am especially looking forward to the event because I am one of the chief organizers of the party.

Decorating the Christmas tree is a whole-family attraction every year. It usually starts relatively early in the morning to have time to take the necessary measures if something unexpected happens. Last Christmas, for example, it turned out only in the morning of December 24 that the tree would not stand firm enough in any of the bases we had so we had to do some hectic rush to find something suitable. We managed to in the end but it took quite alot of extra time, not speaking of the extra money we had to pay. Nevertheless, we purchased a really strong and big one, so that will do this year as well - hopefully.

Christmas is my favourite holiday despite the fact that winter is not at all my favourite season. We normally start the preparations well before December 24, including buying a tall pine tree and the supplementaries, ornaments and light-garlands. Although we have plenty of these already, there is always something new on the Christmas tree every year.

Until recently October 23 has not had a very long tradition in the history of Hungarian state holidays. Up to the 1990s it had not even been considered to be a date worth commemorating. The so called Third Republic of Hungary was, however, declared on that day in 1989 and since then the people in the country have been celebrating it with more or less enthusiasm depending on their political commitment on the left or right.
Since the present government came to power last year the celebration seems to have become a tug of war between the children of the new-old mainstream elite of the communist past and those of the second-rate leaders who, having no other choice to exert any kind of political power, had to become representetatives of the so called conservative national right wing. The latter without sufficient real weight are able to win all the unimportant votings in the country but are unable to seize the mass support of the public and come to power to form a government like they did in the first elections in 1990 and in 1998.