Ka\u0161ko was in a great mood. It was December outside. It was freezing everywhere. Frost was drawing on the windows of apartments, houses, and cars at night. Ka\u0161ko flew from window to window to see what the frost has drawn. He found a meadow full of flowers, clouds in a storm, clouds with sunshine, an elephant with an ant, a spider in a web, and many other wonderful frosty drawings. He didn't even realize when he got to the window behind which Max\u00edk and Majka had their room. Smiling, he approached the window, looked at it and almost contracted a heart attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"What is this?\" Ka\u0161ko exclaimed, startled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He looked at the window once more and became even more frightened. There were flowers painted all over the window, created by the frost. There were two puffy circles in the centre of the window that held the saddest baby eyes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ka\u0161ko slowly approached the window and asked a bit apprehensively:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Fellas, what happened to you?\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The children just gasped, blinked four times, and rolled their eyes twice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Something really serious must have happened,\" Ka\u0161ko murmured quietly to himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He walked to the window and flew in through it like a true ghost. The friends didn't move, they just sighed together again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"So, are you going to tell me what happened?\" Ka\u0161ko urged them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Well, well, well,\" began Max\u00edk, turning from the window, \"when we came to the country of Haravara, grandfather told us how beautiful it was here, and also how wonderful the winters were.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Psaw, beautiful winters,\" Majka opposed into the window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"And what don't you like?\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"What?!\" asked Max\u00edk, uncomprehendingly-<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"We're missing snow here!\" Majka turned from the window. \"Every year we used to go sledding, sliding, building snowmen, snowball fights.\" <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Everything was beautifully white,\" Max\u00edk continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Ah,\" Ka\u0161ko understood, \"but you know it's not just like that.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"What's not just like that?\" Majka asked incomprehensively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Well, snow. The real best snowman snow is made by the angels with their sugar ice,\" Ka\u0161ko explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"What?\" the children opened their eyes like doors to a museum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Every little ghost knows,\" Ka\u0161ko did not understand their surprise, \"that when it does not snow it means only one thing.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"That the angels are lazy,\" Max\u00edk added mockingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Oh, no. It's just that no one gave them the right angel gingerbread cookies at the agreed-upon place.\" <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"And what are these, the real angel gingerbread cookies, and where is the agreed-upon location?\" the children asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"These are gingerbread cookies made from real honey and according to an ancient recipe of Aunt Maria,\" Ka\u0161ko instructed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Great,\" the friends were delighted, \"we'll buy some honey in the shop and get the recipe from an Aunt Maria, too.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Hahaha,\" Ka\u0161ko laughed, \"not every shop has real honey. In some places it's more like liquid sugar. The best place to find honey is at some honey makers.\" <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Do you know one?\" Majka looked questioningly at Ka\u0161ko.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Of course. There are several in the country of Haravara. But in a village like Hrabu\u0161ice they have made a small bee heaven.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Bee heaven?\" the children couldn't believe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Well,\" Ka\u0161ko continued, \"they have hives, a hotel for the bees, the most beautiful meadows far and wide, and good people who take care of the bees.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Sounds interesting. The kids have started to be a little more cheerful, and do you think there's any real honey left?\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Absolutely. After all, it's an apiary. If it wasn't that cold, they'd show you the inside of the hives, or how the bees store their nectar and make honey.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Hmmm, so we're going to take a trip there with my parents in the spring,\" Max\u00edk mused, \"but right now we need some honey for gingerbread.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"You're right, Max\u00edk,\" Ka\u0161ko joined in his thoughts, \"in the spring, you'll come to the apiary with your mother and father to see the bees, and now we'll go there for some good honey. And on the way, we will stop at the Spi\u0161 Castle.\" <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"At the Spi\u0161 Castle?\" the children didn't understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Of course,\" Ka\u0161ko explained to his uncomprehending friends, \"there are two things we need. A recipe and an old furnace. I mean, a furnace that was built exactly as furnaces were being built in the past. That's why gingerbread baked in this oven tastes best to the angels.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Do you really think we're going to the castle to bake gingerbread cookies?\" Majka's eyes nearly fell out of their sockets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"I guess so, let's go then.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The children put on the warmest things they had, put gloves on their hands, Ka\u0161ko gave them some local booster, and soon they were hovering over the Spi\u0161 Castle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"First we will go and get some honey, then to the castle,\" Ka\u0161ko shouted to the children when he saw that they would like to land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Look, Max\u00edk,\" Majka pointed a finger down below her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"I guess this is where we are,\" Max\u00edk whispered and Ka\u0161ko started to descend to the ground. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Below them, various strange buildings, painted tree trunks, and a large gate were built in a circle. They landed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Is this the apiary here??\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Can't you see?! There are the hives,\" Ka\u0161ko pointed to the painted tree stump, \"there is the bee hotel, there is the gate.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"I thought it was some kind of an old Indian totem, and that's the hive,\" Max\u00edk wondered as he took a closer look at the hive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"But where is the honey?\" Majka looked around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Hold on,\" Ka\u0161ko reassured them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He walked over to one of the hives, rubbed his hands together and whispered something through the small gap through which the bees fly in spring and summer. A large bee head appeared in the crack with a small cap on its head. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Ka\u0161ko?\" the bee-head whispered, \"is that really you?\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"It is me, Your Majesty,\" Ka\u0161ko respectfully addressed the head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Why are you waking me up?\" The head looked reproachfully at Ka\u0161ko.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Excuse me, but we need some good honey.\" <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Good honey, good honey, and what for,\" the Queen Bee piped up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Look around,\" he pointed to the freezing countryside, \"there is frost everywhere and no snow. We want to make gingerbread cookies for the angels.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Ah,\" the Queen Bee understood, \"so that's something completely different. We've got honey stashed away in the apiary for our best friends and in case not enough flowers grow in the spring.\" <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Could we get a little bit out of that?\" Majka asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"These are my friends, Majka and Max\u00edk,\" he explained to the surprised queen, \"they can see the ghosts and can hear us talking. I don't know why, but that's how it is.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"My pleasure,\" the Queen bowed her head slightly. \"Find the hive with the bee drawn on it, and underneath you will find our supply of the finest honey.\" <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Thank you,\" they all bowed to the Queen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Take as much as you need and come back next time,\" the Queen Bee called from the hive, where she had gone back to sleep. \"But please don't wake me up again.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Max\u00edk and Majka found a hive with a painted bee in the bee heaven next to a small shelter with various shavings and started digging under it. After a little while they found small cups full of honey. They took three of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"And now quickly to the Spi\u0161 Castle.\" <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a few moments, they reached the castle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"It's really large,\" Max\u00edk looked at the beautiful walls of the castle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"It is one of the largest castles in the area,\" Ka\u0161ko marvelled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"It must have been wonderful here when people and castle ladies were still living here, and there were festivities and high balls,\" Majka started, \"and feasts and dances.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"And when the best cakes in the area were being baked here,\" said Ka\u0161ko, pointing to one of the castle's roofed buildings and running towards it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Wait,\" the children shouted, running after him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They opened a small door and went in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"OOOOOOO,\" the children opened their mouths wide standing as if charmed. They were in a beautiful, historic kitchen where everything scented, everything played with colours, everything from black to purple to white. Fire burning in an old stove that stood in the corner. On the workbench, wooden bowls with fragrant spices and various rolling pins, bowls, and boiling pots were already prepared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some white figures were running around the stove. When they came in, they stopped and rushed to Ka\u0161ko.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Well, at last, my friend,\" Ka\u0161ko hugged him and gave him a cook's apron, \"we thought you wouldn't be coming.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"When I say we're coming, we're coming,\" Ka\u0161ko put his chef's hat on his head. \"There's nothing more important than saving a white Christmas.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Exactly,\" the little white girl squealed, \"have you got it?\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ka\u0161ko tapped his fingers and pointed at Max\u00edk. He understood and immediately took out three bottles of honey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"These are my friends, the castle cooks of the Z\u00e1po\u013esk\u00fd family, who owned this castle as one of the last nobles,\" he gestured to them with a nod of his head towards his white companions, \"Ondrej Jakub, Mar\u00edna... meet the others yourselves.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ka\u0161ko, Jakub, Ondrej, and Mar\u00ednka joined their hands, whispered something into the wind, and the soul of the ghostly library appeared. They took out a book of the oldest recipes of Mrs. M\u00e1ria and started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While everyone was preparing the dough and then cutting out different shapes of gingerbread men, they were telling Max\u00edk and Majka about the Spi\u0161 Castle. About how there was a prehistoric settlement here, then the Celts lived here, and about 800 years ago they built a castle on this hill. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"There was an important road leading by and the castle was an excellent place to defend it,\" Jacob moaned and talked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Then the Mongol warriors invaded Slovakia, just as the whole of Europe, and the castle expanded even more to protect the whole surrounding area,\" Ondrej continued, \"then it was rebuilt, enlarged, and completed by its other lords.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Until it became this monumental work of art on the rock,\" Mar\u00ednka finished this abbreviated history while cutting out the last gingerbread house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"And our nobles couldn't afford to maintain the whole castle, so they moved elsewhere, and the castle fell into disrepair,\" Ka\u0161ko added, putting gingerbread into the heated oven. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"And we settled here, now that we've become ghosts,\" Ondrej sat down on a carved wooden chair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"And where do we take the gingerbread cookies so that the angels can sugar them?\" Majka asked suddenly, wiggling her nose, because the irresistible scent of gingerbread, which belonged to Christmas like a tree, was spreading through the kitchen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Well, to Bethlehem, where little Jesus was born,\" Ka\u0161ko noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Are we going to Bethlehem?\" the children couldn't believe their ears, \"and today?\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"That's right,\" Ka\u0161ko mused, \"we probably wouldn't make it.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jakub knocked on the table and spoke mysteriously: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"You may take the gingerbread to any place called Bethlehem. It doesn't have to be Bethlehem in Israel. All the places that are called like that are somehow connected to that Bethlehem in Israel where baby Jesus was born.\" <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"But where do we find such a place?\" the children asked desperately, looking out of the kitchen window at the sky, where the sun was already setting behind the hills of the Tatra Mountains that could be seen from there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Jerusalem is just near the castle,\" whispered Mar\u00ednka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Jerusalem, Jerusalem,\" Ka\u0161ko thought stiffly, \"hand me a map of the world.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In turn, the little ghosts set the library in operation and opened a map of Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Show me Bethlehem.\" Ka\u0161ko commanded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A map of Bethlehem appeared in the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"You see that,\" smiled Ka\u0161ko.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Well, we can see, but how does it help that we can see?\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Look closely,\" Ka\u0161ko urged, smiling even more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"I don't understand.\" Max scratched his head and Majka scratched her nose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Here is Bethlehem,\" Ka\u0161ko pointed to the map, \"and here, right next to it, is Jerusalem. It's like one city. Where one ends, the other begins.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"I still don't understand.\" Ka\u0161ko's ghost friends started scratching their heads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"All we have to do is take our gingerbread houses to Jerusalem in Spi\u0161 and put them on this city border and they will actually be in Bethlehem,\" Ka\u0161ko tapped the map.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"I see,\" they all cheered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"And will it work?\" Majka questioned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"We'll see,\" Ka\u0161ko closed the library, \"we have no other choice.\" <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While baking gingerbread, the children learned something about Spi\u0161 Jerusalem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than four hundred years ago, there were several monasteries in the area. And there were also very good schools in the monasteries. The monks called Jesuits were the best teachers back then. And they were also here in the area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"One morning one of the monks climbed the tower of the church in the Spi\u0161 Chapter and looked at the landscape with the stream, small hills, valleys and almost fell off the roof,\" Jakub continued in Ka\u0161ko's explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Why?\" Max\u00edk whispered curiously, \"did he see something terrible?\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"No,\" laughed Mar\u00ednka, \"before he came here to Haravara, the monk was in Israel, and he passed through Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Well, when he looked at the brook and those hills, he realised that it looked like Jerusalem.\" <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"And they built various chapels and churches here. Just as they stand in Jerusalem on the famous Stations of the Cross,\" finished Ka\u0161ko. \"They built a little piece of Jerusalem here in Haravara as well.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Fantastic!\" Majka blurted out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"It's done,\" Mar\u00ednka exclaimed cheerfully, and they took the gingerbread cookies from the oven, put them in Max\u00edk's backpack, and went to St. Martin's Church, which stands on the place where the Last Supper took place in Jerusalem, Israel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"So, from there we have to go back and forth and eighteen steps in that direction and we should be on the border of Jerusalem and Bethlehem,\" Ka\u0161ko pointed in the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They came to a deserted place in a beautiful winter meadow. They put gingerbread houses on the ground, looked around to see if the angels were already running around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"There's nothing more we can do here,\" Ka\u0161ko took his friends, shivering from cold, by the hands and carried them to the train station. There they took the fast train to Ko\u0161ice. Max\u00edk and Majka were sitting impatiently and looked out the window. Max\u00edk reached into one of his pockets and took out a jaw harp. He started to strum it slowly. The jaw harp and the regular rumbling of the train caused the children falling asleep in a moment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Get up!\" Ka\u0161ko had been whispering in their ears for quite a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"WHAT, are we home yet?\" the children opened their eyes and saw Ka\u0161ko smiling suspiciously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"What happened to you?\" Max\u00edk asked him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Look out the window.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was snowing beautifully outside the window. The children came out of the train and on their way home they were already leaving footprints in the white snow. It seemed to them that the snow smelled like gingerbread. In bed, they were imagining angels eating their gingerbread and snow falling all over the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were smiling so much that even Uncle Moon couldn't shine properly but had to hide behind a small cloud to laugh.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201eOkolo \u010cane \u017eili najlep\u0161ie mamuty v celej krajine Haravara. Najrad\u0161ej som ich mal na dobrej \u0161korici, hmmm,\u201c ... ste zvedav\u00ed, ako pokra\u010dovalo Ka\u0161kovo rozpr\u00e1vanie? <\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":7777,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"class_list":["post-7775","pribehy","type-pribehy","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n