Hayley Lanier is a biologist. 
She specializes in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Oklahoma. The 2025/2026 academic year, however, is taking her far from campus. Together with her husband and their two school-aged children, she is spending the year in the small Czech village of Liběchov, home to about 1,000 residents. Less than an hour’s drive from Prague, the village hosts the Institute of Animal Physiology and Genetics, where Hayley is conducting research as a Fulbright Program Scholar. Her work focuses on how population history shapes genomic adaptation to climate change. But beyond the lab, the year is also an adventure for the whole family. What is it like to settle into life in the Czech countryside and to experience local traditions and holidays along the way?
“But will Santa be able to find us?” When we planned to move to Czechia for my year-long Fulbright my 3-year-old, Iggy, had some very pressing concerns about how holidays and birthdays would happen in our new home. I’m on a year-long Fulbright at the Institute for Animal Physiology and Genetics, part of the Czech Academy of Sciences, where I use genomic data to predict population responses to environmental change. I was lucky enough to bring my spouse, Jason, and our two young boys along for the adventure, and having young children along has greatly shaped how we have experienced Czechia. When we prepared the kids for our trip, they had a lot of excitement—mostly related to food and school—and a lot of questions about how those important yearly events would be marked. 
Every Fulbright experience is unique, but our situation may be particularly unusual. We ended up living outside Prague with another family—that of Josef and Ludmila Abrhám, who have three kids around the same ages as our two boys. Luckily, all the adults in our busy household have a relatively high tolerance for chaos, as sometimes happens with five kids running around. It’s also been an excellent opportunity for our families to learn from one another. My older son, Elias, likes to help their youngest daughter (who is also 3) to count in English, their oldest daughter (also 8) has been teaching Iggy to swim, Elias and their older boy (who is 7) play chess and Catan, and all five kids build “bunkers” (which we would have called pillow forts in the US) with all of the couch cushions and blankets inside. We talk mainly in English, in part because the Abrháms were hoping we could help their kids improve their English skills but watch movies and TV in either language, and the discussion among the kids patters back and forth between both languages as their skills and understanding allow: “Iggy want caj?” (tea), “To je moje!” (that is mine!) “Fuj!” (yuck).
Photo: The Lanier-Turo Family and the Abrháms at the battle of Australiz, celebrating one of Napolean’s famous victories by dressing the part, November 2025.
As we arrived in August, Halloween was the first major holiday the kids looked forward to. Interestingly, it seems like some of the darker aspects of Halloween have been exported from the US, with many stores having small sections of decorations (bloody hands, scary masks, and skeletons) without quite as much of the incessant candy angle I associate with the US—at least where we live no one trick-or-treats. We did attend Halloween parties, one at the local castle which included two different spooky tours, and one at our local community building, where the kids visited different booths to try out different challenges and win some candy. Despite the lack of bulging bags of candy our kids had a good time, and it was a nice change (from my perspective) to have less of a primary focus on sugar.
Photo: Halloween at the Melnik castle featured both face painting and a scary walk through the wine cellars, where ghouls and goblins scared the bigger kids and gave small candys to small children, October 2025.
Photo: Elias and Iggy are excited about Elias’s amazing robot birthday cake, which we enjoyed at the new Puro shop at Jungmannovo náměstí, February 2026.
Early December, many people in Czechia and central Europe celebrate St. Mikuláš Day—which features St. Nikolas, an angel, and a devil who travel around to reward good children and punish naughty ones. They often make appearances at school, at community buildings, or even at home. Josef (the son of two of the most famous Czech actors) is also director and filmmaker, and the visitation at our house was accompanied by bells, smoke, and the smell of brimstone! The children are each expected to recite a poem or sing a song and then must account for their behavior in the last year, both the good and the bad. Good children are given bags of treats by the angel, but the devil will punish naughty children by giving them potatoes, coal, or even (in extreme cases) wrapping them up in a sack and taking them off! Our boys enjoyed both the experience and Elias even requested some coal to go with his candy.
Christmas in Czechia is also different from our American traditions. Children write letters to Baby Jesus to ask for presents, which are left in the window so that he can find them (apparently Baby Jesus doesn’t go in for mailboxes). Presents, generally not too many, are brought by Baby Jesus on Christmas Eve, although my younger son has decided that Baby Jesus must have had some assistance from Santa (“Because Baby Jesus can’t fly and Santa can!”). Ours appeared magically while we were taking an evening walk after Christmas dinner—a big, joyful event we shared with the Abrháms and the Ukranian family who live on the property, who left Ukraine due to the war and now work in the family’s gelato business. There was the traditional Slovak sourkraut soup (kapustnika), schnitzel, several dishes contributed by the Ukrainians which were incredible, but I couldn’t begin to name. We listened to music, shared drinks and conversation, and watched the kids play until late into the night.
And did Santa find us as well? Yes, he filled the kids’ stockings and left a couple of presents to open on Christmas morning. Just as our kids had expected.
Photo: The kids prepared for Christmas dinner by running circles around the table and claiming their seats early. Posing for a photo after opening presents, December 2025.
Early December, many people in Czechia and central Europe celebrate St. Mikuláš Day—which features St. Nikolas, an angel, and a devil who travel around to reward good children and punish naughty ones. They often make appearances at school, at community buildings, or even at home. Josef (the son of two of the most famous Czech actors) is also director and filmmaker, and the visitation at our house was accompanied by bells, smoke, and the smell of brimstone! The children are each expected to recite a poem or sing a song and then must account for their behavior in the last year, both the good and the bad. Good children are given bags of treats by the angel, but the devil will punish naughty children by giving them potatoes, coal, or even (in extreme cases) wrapping them up in a sack and taking them off! Our boys enjoyed both the experience and Elias even requested some coal to go with his candy.
Christmas in Czechia is also different from our American traditions. Children write letters to Baby Jesus to ask for presents, which are left in the window so that he can find them (apparently Baby Jesus doesn’t go in for mailboxes). Presents, generally not too many, are brought by Baby Jesus on Christmas Eve, although my younger son has decided that Baby Jesus must have had some assistance from Santa (“Because Baby Jesus can’t fly and Santa can!”). Ours appeared magically while we were taking an evening walk after Christmas dinner—a big, joyful event we shared with the Abrháms and the Ukranian family who live on the property, who left Ukraine due to the war and now work in the family’s gelato business. There was the traditional Slovak sourkraut soup (kapustnika), schnitzel, several dishes contributed by the Ukrainians which were incredible, but I couldn’t begin to name. We listened to music, shared drinks and conversation, and watched the kids play until late into the night.
And did Santa find us as well? Yes, he filled the kids’ stockings and left a couple of presents to open on Christmas morning. Just as our kids had expected.
