Russian Christmas/Ukrainian Christmas
Christmas in Russia and Ukraine is normally celebrated on January 7th. The date is different because the Russian Orthodox church uses the old 'Julian' calendar for religious celebration days. The Orthodox Church also celebrates Advent. But it has fixed dates, starting on 28th of November and going to the 6th of January, so it's 40 days long. (I’m so doing an advent calendar next year).
After the revolution of 1917 the people were forbidden from celebrating Christmas, only being reinstated as a national holiday in 1991.
We always celebrated Christmas, or the birth of Christ, in Ukraine when we were growing up. I remember the beautifully ornate Christmas ornaments and tinsel. So much tinsel, the tree was covered in it. My mom would allow each of us to put up a handful. The boys would just glob it on and she would have to fix it to her liking when no one was watching (I’m bringing tinsel back next year, now I just need to find who would sell it). There were no gifts under the tree back then; my mom would surprise us with a bag of candy, a mandarin orange, and a little gift for each of us on Christmas morning. Nothing big, but we were so excited! Then we would get dressed in multiple layers to walk in the knee high snow to a theater for a Christmas show. I remember the show was always about Det Maroz (or Grandfather Frost–Santa) and his granddaughter Snegurachka. Then we would head to church for a special service and get another bag of candy! It was a magical day for us kids.
When we moved to the US we started celebrating Christmas on Dec. 25th. However, my mom would always do something special for us on January 7th – Russian Christmas. If the day fell on a weekday we always skipped school and went shopping to get the “after Christmas” deals. That evening we had a feast with friends and family at our house. We sang hymns as my uncle played the piano. The adults would stay over super late and we would be ushered to bed because we couldn’t skip two days of school – but many times we did. My mom would still prepare a bag of really amazing chocolates from the Russian store and an orange for each of us.
One thing I so desperately wanted to preserve with my kids is celebrating Russian Christmas. This year I decided to start a tradition to celebrate it. I wanted something simple to talk about my childhood memories and the Russian/Ukrainian culture. Simon (7) is old enough now to be interested in my stories and will remember them.
The boys woke up this morning to their stockings filled with candy, a little toy, and an orange. We had a fancy breakfast with waffles, berries, and whipped cream, and chocolate for dessert. They sipped hot chocolate with candy canes all day, played games, read books, and cuddled all day. It actually snowed, so they had a white Christmas! We were snowed in… Simon felt pretty special that he gets to have two Christmases!
Tomorrow the Christmas tree can officially come down.
