Christmas was still white then. We still enjoyed the snow then, because we didn't have to shovel snow. Communist ideology was still raging then, but we didn't know anything about it, we didn't feel anything about it. We were still children then.

Of course, this is not entirely true. We did feel something, but we couldn't understand that it was the system and not our father's foolishness. What we really didn't like - going to church on Sunday. Of course, the Holy Mass touched us every time - although we didn't even realize it at the time - the early morning wake-ups, getting dressed half-asleep, the long walk in the winter slush that woke us up for good - that was what we all hated.

We didn't understand why we had to go to the 6 o'clock Mass, why we couldn't choose the 10 o'clock High Mass. We didn't understand why our father was dressed like a war refugee, why the riding coat, why the face was hidden behind the turned-up collar - and why we had to go to mass at the other end of town. For us, this meant - at the time - socialism, even though we didn't even know about it. The fact that you have to hide, so that our good father doesn't meet an acquaintance, someone who might be a spy, an agent, and who will throw him up that very day: this Gyuri Tóth is a clerical class traitor. He infiltrated journalists and spreads anti-establishment ideas there.

We only knew how disgusting it was when we were taken out of our best sleep at five o'clock in the morning on Sunday, and no matter how warmly we were dressed, by the time we got to church, our ears were frozen.

We didn't mind it until the streets were already covered in snow (in retrospect, I remember that snow shovels rarely used the roads, and even then they did nothing but cut some of the thick white blanket), because then the sled came out. The four children (the fifth was still very small for early morning mass) just barely fit on it, but at least we didn't have to walk, our father pulled our "vehicle" breathlessly, and we enjoyed the joys of winter.

What we didn't really like - the midnight mass. After all, Jesus has already arrived and it would have been better to play with the presents...

The years have passed, we have already understood why a journalist has to hide if he is a believer. And even the midnight mass turned from a burden into an experience...

Then, in 1972, we were able to experience God's Christmas miracle.

We no longer walked, but traveled in a Skoda Octavia station wagon to get to the Matthias Church every Sunday morning. At that time, Buda Castle was not yet closed, there was always a free space in the parking lot next to the church (because there were not many cars). But that evening, before midnight mass, a cordon surrounded the parking lot.

My father rolled down the car window and asked the guard standing there why the parking lot could not be used.

"The place is reserved for comrades!" came the answer, and my father:

- God performed a miracle, the party soldiers were converted!

In vain, anything can happen at Christmas.

(Archive illustration source: kitervezte.hu)