I’ve always loved Christmas. First, as a child, growing up in the Soviet Union and celebrating the Soviet secular equivalent of Christmas, the New Year’s Eve. There would be the mandatory New Year “morning party” (утренник), the winter-themed annual masquerade, featuring singing and awkward preschool choreography. This would be one of a few times a year I would get to dress up, though usually I didn’t get to pick the character. I did not, for example, pick the “mushroom” costume one year, but I absolutely rocked my “Snow Queen” persona at the last party before going to 1st grade and leaving the “morning parties” for the youngins. I can’t find the mushroom photo or the snow queen at the moment but here’s one of me as a snowflake:
We would still have a Christmas tree, though not called a “Christmas tree”. Just a “fir.” It would still have beautiful decorations and a star on top, presents would still magically appear under it roughly around midnight on New Year’s Eve. Sometimes, there would be a “Grandfather Frost” involved.
Living in Western Ukraine during the strange period surrounding the collapse of the Soviet Union, I had an insecure relationship with Christmas. There was the official New Year celebration, of course, but it coexisted with a plethora of other winter holidays of various origins. Take, for example, December 19, Saint Nicholas Day. Not a huge holiday to be excited about but significant nonetheless because it felt like the beginning of the holiday season. That, and Nicholas (or Nikolay) is one of the family names in my family.
Next, there was the “Western Christmas”, December 25th, which my family began celebrating sometime after the end of the U.S.S.R., and which involved an elaborate dinner on Christmas Eve. I may be wrong, but I think my parents were turned on to it after they joined a Pentecostal church in the 90s. For all intents and purposes, my immediate family have been proper Soviet citizens who did not approve of religious activities up until that point.
It is this Christmas that I’ve come to love. It was small, just our parents and us kids, and there wasn’t much to it other than tasty Ukrainian food, presents, decorations and being in each other’s company. That’s all. Later on, it evolved to include church services and prayers and other people, which, in retrospect, I took as intrusion into my cozy family bubble. Many years later, I understand that it is this feeling of being in a small, loving, warm bubble, that makes Christmas my favorite holiday.
After the New Year (which is still the main winter holiday in many ex-Soviet countries), and exactly two weeks after the “Western Christmas”, we would sort of celebrate the “Old Christmas.” This was Christmas according to the Greek Orthodox calendar. This holiday was a lot less remarkable, at least in Western Ukraine, but it was still an excuse to eat a good dinner (and for many, get drunk). It also carried a curious old-timey, pagan flavor. I am sure that, quite like all mainstream Western holidays, it was just a re-branded pagan holiday from before Ukraine became Christened.
The “Old Christmas” would also kick-off a week-long season of singing traditional Christmas and New Year carols, concluded on the first day of “Old New Year”, January 14, with a special “sowing” song, accompanied by throwing grains over the threshold and wishing the family prosperity in the New Year.
You have probably realized by now that in Ukraine, it’s really a whole month of Christmas. December 25th only recently became an official holiday and you are free to pick which of the many holidays you like better. Or do it all!
I have been living in the U.S. for 17 year now. Sometime soon, there will be a tipping point, where I have spent more of my life in the U.S. than in Ukraine. I have embraced the “Western Christmas” wholeheartedly since, both in continuing celebrations with my brothers and parents and once I had a family of my own. I dread most American holidays and the frenzy that comes months before them (“are you ready for_____ (fill in the blank)??!!!!”). But Christmas…still has a warm glow to me. I love giving presents. I love the smell of Christmas trees. I love being in the bubble, which I am now the creator and keeper of.
So now you know the history of my Christmas 😉. What is yours like? And if not Christmas, what other winter holidays feel special to you? Whatever they are, I wish you happiness, peace and love. I wish you the warmth that comes from being in a bubble, with people you love. And speaking of the people we love, I will leave you with this Christmas carol performed by my boyfriend and my kids (at 36:30 if the video doesn’t take you straight there). The rest of the musical compilation from a great selection of California musicians and put together by the aforementioned boyfriend, is also worth a spin. Enjoy!