The preferred alcoholic hard drink is raki that is locally produced in small towns as well as in many homes in the countryside; in some instances you may run across men washing down breakfast with a few shots.
For a long time, roughly half-a-century, celebrating a religious festivity was a pure act of rebellion in Albania. Former dictator Enver Hoxha in his attempt to create the homo-sovieticus had banned anything from Christmas to Carnivals. Any challenge to the rule and you could be drop-shipped to the gulags as priority mail.