Not exactly tricky words this time, but a seasonal reminder about Christmas. The second part of the word comes from pre-Reformation times, when a special mass (omša) was celebrated on certain days of the year. Protestant church-goers attend Sunday service (not mass), but on Christmas Eve people still talk about going to Midnight Mass.

Christmas Eve is not a woman's name, but it is short for "evening" in the sense of the "day before" (Slovak "predvečer"). In England generally (it's not so easy to generalize about the USA because of the many different cultural backgrounds of the people) nothing special happens on December 24th, but Father Christmas (or Santa Claus - the garbled modern form of Saint Nicholas) goes around during the night delivering presents (fulfilling the roles of Mikuláš AND Ježiško in one person), so the children get their gifts on the morning of December 25th. After that everybody sits down to Christmas dinner.

Whatever you do in your families, we wish you a very enjoyable, satisfying and relaxing "Merry Christmas"!