Hello fellow friends in America!
I hope you had a wonderful Holiday
season and received all that you hoped for!
We know that in the USA you celebrate
both Christmas (25th December) and New Year’s Day (1st
January). In Ukraine, we also have Christmas and New years but we
celebrate them differently. Firstly, our Christmas is on the 7th
of January. We do not celebrate American Christmas on the 25th of December. Ukrainian Christmas is also a little different from the American
version. Our Christmas is purely a religious holiday, and
non-religious people do not celebrate it. On the other hand, American
Christmas is a holiday celebrated by religious and non-religious
people.
Our New Year’s celebration tends to be more similar to your Christmas celebration, except for different dates of
course! We celebrate New Year’s with our entire family, including
aunts, uncles, grand-parents, and cousins. Everyone gathers together
the night before New Year’s day and they exchange presents, have a
feast together, and then watch the president’s speech on the
television. The big difference between your New year’s and our New
year’s is that we stay together with our family until after
midnight, eating together and making toasts. A little after midnight,
some younger people leave their families and meet their friends in
the central location of the city, which in our town is a big
Christmas tree in our square. In our square we have music and we dance around the tree. Ms. Daniela was really surprised on her
first New Year’s when she was in the central square of our town at
almost midnight and there were no people!
In Ms. Daniela’s class, we saw a
video of the New Year’s Time Square celebration. Ms. Daniela said
that in America, many people celebrate New Year’s in the same way,
by having parties with there friends, and sometimes family. However,
she said that even if you are with your family, it is not traditional
to exchange presents or have a big feast like we do. She did say that
it is traditional to KISS someone though!!!
Our Christmas is similar to how
religious people celebrate Christmas in the USA. It is traditional to
remember the story of the birth of Jesus Christ through reading or acting.
We also go to Church on Christmas and sometimes we exchange small
presents, (not always though, since we can not always afford to give
presents on New Year’s and Christmas).
In Ukraine, we also celebrate the Old New Year, which is the 14th of January. It is tradition for boys to knock on their neighbor's doors very early in the morning, (3-5am!). When the neighbor opens the door, the boy throws rice in the doorway and then the neighbor must give their blessings to the boy for the new year, (a little present like chocolate). Because it is so early in the morning, it is okay to ignore the doorbell or knocking as long as you open the door for the first boy.
The last holiday of the season is the day of baptism, on the 19th of January. This day is by far the craziest holiday. It is tradition on this day to go to the nearest water where there is a cross cut into the ice and "baptize" yourself by dunking into the water three times. This holiday is mainly dominated by men but some women also go. Sometimes groups go to the banya after this. The banya is a hot room where the air is about 125 degrees (~255 degrees Fahrenheit). Compared to the commonly known "sauna", a Russian banya is "wet" or steamed, while a sauna is traditionally dry. (Below is Johanna, a German volunteer in a traditional banya-hat to protect the head from the heat!)
We'd love to hear about your holidays!
