Hello Delaware Kiwanis:

I know these days all celebrates the Christmas. In Ukraine we have not much preparation for Christmas But we make a christmas programs for children. I think tomorrow we shall decorate our house and to put the Christmas tree.

First people in Ukraine celebrates the New Year its a big holyday here. Christmas in Ukraine in January, 7.
I would send some pictures I took from last meetings with children. We made a programs with members of our Kiwanis club.

There were no holidays in the Ukraine that people waited for with such impatience as New Year's Day. Children expect presents and their parents and indeed all adults expect that the New Year will bring ease, wealth, and contentment. The first New Year's tree was lighted in Russia three hundred years ago, when Peter I issued a special ukase (or edict) to the effect that the New Year celebrations will be held each year on the night of the first of January. During the decades of Soviet power, when Christmas was not observed, New Year's personified the Christmas holidays as well as the arrival of the New Year. In Russia, the New Year is marked once again--on the night of January 13-14. It is called "The Old New Year" and it is marked symbolically.

New Year's is considered to be a family holiday and is celebrated at home with family members and near and dear friends. It is even greeted in restaurants, in the country, in the forest, even alongside firtrees. There exists the popular belief that however one greets the New Year that is the way one will live the New Year. For this reason people meet the New Year with a hearty meal and lots of champagne. They are convinced that they will live out the New Year with abundance and wealth.

Obligatory to the holiday celebrations is the firtree. As soon as you bring a beautiful tree into your house, there is a puff of pine needles and freshness--it is clear that the New Year is fast approaching. The house or flat is immediately set in order, floors are washed, and carpets are cleaned. The day before, it is the rule to array the fir tree, to decorate apartment with fir or pine branches with cones, garlands, snowflakes, and the ribbons of paper streamers. Snowflakes, cut from white paper, are glued onto windows. The snow man, the firtree, and winter hares are drawn with watercolors. Hanging from fir tree are toys cut from fine glass: many-colored balls, figurines of animals and fairy-tale personages, beads, "gold" and "silver" streamers. Under the firtree are placed the toys delivered by Grandfather Frost and the Snow-Maiden.

The kindly Grandfather Frost and his granddaughter Snow-Maiden, with her long light brown plait of hair, visit good little ukraine children at New Year's. Often during the festivities, with theatrical performances in schools, theatres, and circuses, one can meet Winter, Baby New Year, and many fairy-tale personages like the scary Baba Yaga (the witch in ukraine folk tales). On the evenings before New Year's, young children sing and dance in a ring around the tree, telling rhymes and singing. The elder children go to kolyadovat, that is, they go from house to house, apartment to apartment, to perform the ancient Christmas rite of the glorification of the holiday through the singing of songs. They wish happiness, health, and good luck, and in return, they are given nuts, apples, cookies, sweetmeats, and a small coin.

On New Year's Eve, the holiday table is laid. New Year's supper usually begins at ten or eleven o'clock in the evening, and it will last for three hours so there is time to "see off" the old year At exactly five minutes to midnight, the Ukraine President delivers his address to the ukraine people. And exactly at midnight, the chimes strike twelve times. People hold their breath and wish for what they most want to see happen during the approaching year. Then they fill their glasses with sparkling champagne and raise them and they wish one another happiness throughout the New Year. Outside, on the street, many-colored fireworks are ignited. Shouts of "Hurrah-ah-ah!" and other joyful cries are heard. There are mutual congratulations in person and by telephone. General joy reigns!

Each person trusts that the New Year will bring him happiness and good luck and that all his projected plans will be realized.
If the streets are full of snow, in a few hours, having tasted delicious food excitedly and joyfully, the people leave their houses and walk the streets and head for the nearest hill or square and there go tobogganing and behaving like little children.

For the duration of the New Year's festivities, there is no school. School boys and girls build snow men and toboggan down icy slides. Level fields near the houses are flooded and a skating rink is made ready. At the town skating rinks, one can whirl on skates to the music and play hockey. Or one can take the family out of the city to a hill to ski down it. In villages, children skate on the ice of frozen rivers or ponds. They also go skiing over the fields and across the glades. With fresh freezing air, deep silence, and chunky snow under one's feet---it is wonderful!

I love this holiday
Lora