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The head of the Czech Roman Catholic church, Archbishop Dominik Duka, hosted Christmas lunch for homeless people. The lunch, organized for the 14th time by the Sant'Egidio community, was held in the Archbishop Palace and the Capuchin Monastery in Hradčany. Some 270 guests arrived to enjoy the traditional liver dumpling soup, beef in cream sauce, roast duck with cabbage and dumplings, and Christmas cookies. Every guest also received a small gift.

Czechs are getting ready to celebrate Christmas, with the traditional family dinner taking place on 24 December. This Sunday is the last one of the advent, and is in Czech called Golden Sunday. For the traditional Christmas dinner Czechs buy carp, which they usually eat with potato salad.

On Christmas Eve, most Czech families will like every year sit down to special dinner before rushing to the Christmas tree. They will unwrap their presents and some might sing a few carols, and even engage in some traditional Christmas customs such as floating walnut shells, halving an apple or even pouring melted led. But most people are just likely to sit back and watch TV which each year features all the popular fairytales. But what happens in families with mixed backgrounds? How do they celebrate Christmas and explain the different traditions

Czechs are getting ready to celebrate Christmas, with the traditional family dinner taking place on 24 December. This Sunday is the last one of the advent, and is in Czech called Golden Sunday. For the traditional Christmas dinner Czechs buy carp, which they usually eat with potato salad.

In Magazine: why did many young Czechs roll up their trouser legs on a cold day? Czech travel agencies publish a list of the most amusing complaints made by their clients and, Czech fisheries produce a healthier breed of carp.

Some of the nine presidential candidates will suspend their campaigns during the Christmas holidays, the news agency ČTK reported on Friday. The frontrunner, Jan Fischer, said people should have some time off politics during the upcoming holiday season while Foreign Minster Karel Schwarzenberg will spend Christmas with his family and will resume campaigning in the New Year. Independent candidate Táňa Fischerová said Christmas was a spiritual holiday with no room for politics. Jana Bobošíková and Vladimír Franz also said they would suspend their campaigns until next month.

With Christmas just around the corner, a search is underway in many households’ attics or basements for ornaments that will – in due time – decorate the Christmas tree. In many families, trees will be adorned with the colourful glass globes, spikes, figurines and other baubles whose tradition in the Czech Republic goes back to the times of the Great Depression. In this edition of Marketplace, we follow the story of Ozdoba CZ, one of the oldest Czech producers of glass Christmas ornaments

With Christmas just around the corner the hustle and bustle in Prague’s streets and shops has visibly intensified. Yet behind the bright lights, the ever-present advertisements and Christmas carols the mood is slightly more sober this Christmas, reflecting the deepening recession and bleak outlooks on the job market. Czechs are enjoying the Christmas atmosphere but they are spending less on presents and are far less willing to take out loans for exotic Christmas holidays or buy things on lease as they have been doing for years.

The average Czech family are planning to spend around CZK 4,000 (around USD 200) on their Christmas dinner and tree, according to survey conducted by the STEM/MARK agency for the company Home Credit. Three quarters of respondents said they were planning to have a traditional Czech Christmas, spending the festive season with their families and eating carp on the evening of December 24. Over 80 percent of those polled said they planned to buy presents in traditional shops, though an analyst for Home Credit said a surprising number of the over 60s were making purchases online this year.

A Christmas outdoor ice-skating rink opened on Prague’s Ovocný trh, in the city centre on Wednesday. The rink is open from 10 am till 10 pm daily for free and people can rent skates on the spot. The ice-rink has an eleven-year-tradition and is used by around 20,000 people every Christmas. It will remain open until January 6th.