Nea Fane – Un Biet Român Pripășit în America / A Hapless Romanian Stuck in The US

Since before the New Year, I’ve been hearing about January Dry. Or Dry January. Or something like that.

I didn’t pay much attention until January 7th approached: Saint John’s Day (Sfântul Ioan), a very important religious observation and celebration in Romania. So important, in fact, that Romanians typically are encouraged to take time off work well before Christmas and stay off until January 8th.

Not because we Balkan folk are overly religious, but because we love celebrating, with lots of food and even more alcohol, distilled in various and sundry forms.

Two things are worth mentioning here. First, when it’s someone’s name day (say, Saint Ștefan or Saint Ioan) that person must be fully prepared. Why? Because it’s customary for guests to show up at the door uninvited. The host, fortunately, knows and expects this, and, of course, the guests know they’ll be welcomed. Second, Balkan feasts in general – and Romanian celebrations in particular – are, to put it mildly, Epic, as various TikTok and YouTube influencers have recently discovered.

In my own case, you can take a Romanian out of Romania, but you can’t take Romanian customs out of a Romanian.

Listening with half of my deaf ear to the Dry January slogan, I said to myself: “Let’s combine the customs of my adoptive country and the ones from the Motherland and find something dry to drink.”

Now, around 40% of the Romanian population is named Ion (or some variation of that), whether as a first or a middle name. My uncle is Ion, and my nephew’s family is now at Ioan the Fifth, and among friends? Don’t even get me started.

So, after such a long introduction, I decided that today, being the 6th, I should start searching for something dry to drink on the 7th in memory of the Ioans who have left us and in honor of those still with us because, wherever you are on this planet, you simply must raise a glass of something for them. You can’t just let January 7th pass by without celebrating.

And then, with my good ear, I caught a very enthusiastic lady on TV explaining how wonderful it is to not drink anything in January, hence The Dry January movement.

Notwithstanding, I raised an eyebrow, raised my glass of very good champagne, and said to myself: “Well then, next month can be my dry month! Especially since it’s shorter!”