It is an old custom in Istria, as well as the rest of Croatia and the Balkans, to grow cups of wheat for Christmas. It is wonderful to see green sprouts in many a home around this time. Straight and tall, they are bursting with life. Having noticed a few such cups at the hotel lobby this morning, I talked about the custom with one of the waitresses who made coffee for me. “Many years ago,” she laughed, “people thought these cups would tell them how the next harvest would turn out.” The way she put it, it was nothing but superstition. “Many years ago,” I chimed in with a smile, “it was their own wheat that they tested for Christmas.” In other words, superstition was mixed with reason. “If the seed was not the best,” I continued, “cups like these would foretell pretty accurately that the harvest would not be the best, either.” The waitress agreed with me at once, but then she told me a little more about her grandparents playing with magic many years ago. While planting cups of wheat for Christmas, for instance, they would murmur magic words. There were different formulas for different occasions. We laughed, but I was still delighted by what I learned. Many years ago, superstition and reason worked well together. And in every household.