Hello Delaware Kiwanis!

I would want that you and your club found more about Ukraine Christmas. I very much interested in traditions of Ukrainian and history of other countries. I would tell more about Christmas in Ukraine. Our holiday differs from holidays in other countries.
All I shall tell we do in our family. I cook special food for Christmas for each Christmas day. Also I and my club we shall create Christmas theatre by the Ukrainian tradition. If you have questions please ask.

I wish to tell about Christmas in Ukraine

For the Ukrainian people Christmas is the most important family holiday of the whole year. It is celebrated solemnly, as well as merrily. Christmas in Ukraine is celebrated January 7 according to the Gregorian calendar as in most of other Orthodox Christian countries.

During the Soviet time it was not officially celebrated in Ukraine. Instead communist government tried to substitute Christmas with the holiday of New Year.

After gaining it's independence in 1991 Ukraine started to celebrate Christmas officially as well Christianity was introduced into Ukraine in 988 A.D.

19 December - St. Nicolas Day On this day parents and relatives try to surprise their kids by placing small gifts, toys, or books into symbolic shoes or stockings or even under their pillows. St. Nicolas is the most well known Saint from the KievanRus era. People consider him first to help with any appeal and trouble. This day opens the chain of winter holidays. Every child who behaved during the year will receive a present from St. Nicolas on this day. Nowadays it has become traditional to present gifts to every child.

Ukrainian Christmas festivities begin on Christmas Eve Jan.6. and end on the Feast of the Epiphany. The Christmas Eve Supper or Sviata Vecheria (Holy Supper) brings the family together to partake in special foods and begin the holiday with many customs and traditions, which reach back to antiquity.

In most parts of Ukraine on the Christmas Eve people create so-called 'Vertep' These are scenes from Bible of Jesus birth. They show little Jesus in manger, Mary, strangers offering their gifts and Bethlehem star in the sky. Those verteps are exhibited at public places, usually near or inside churches. For this evening people install and decorate Christmas trees in their houses. (Sometimes they are called also 'Novorichna Jalynka' --New-Year's firtree here).

Children this evening come around their neighbors with torches and sparclers (called here Bengal lights) spreading grains and colored seeds. They wish people good health and abundant harvest for the next year and ask for some donations. Also they perform some Christmas songs called in different parts of Ukraine 'Koliadky' or 'Shchedrivky'
like these:

With the appearance of the first star which is believed to be the Star of Bethlehem, the family gathers to begin supper.

A kolach (Christmas bread) is placed in the center of the table. This bread is braided into a ring, and three such rings are placed one on top of the other, with a candle in the center of the top one. The three rings symbolize the Trinity and the circular form represents
Eternity.

Kutia is the most important food of the entire Christmas Eve Supper, and is also called God's Food. A jug of uzvar (stewed fruits, which should contain twelve different fruits) and is called God's Drink, is also served.

There are twelve courses in the Supper, because according to the Christian tradition each course is dedicated to one of Christ's Apostles.

The first course is always kutia. It is the main dish of the whole supper. Then comes borshch (beet soup) with vushka (boiled dumplings filled with chopped mushrooms and onions). This is followed by a variety of fish - baked, broiled, fried, cold in aspic, fish balls, marinated herring and so on. Then come varenyky (boiled dumplings filled with cabbage, potatoes, buckwheat grains, or prunes. There are also holubtsi (stuffed cabbage), and the supper ends with uzvar.

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. There exists the popular belief that however one greets the New Year that is the way one will live the New Year.

Obligatory to the holiday celebrations is the firtree. 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 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.

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.

I love this holiday. These are photos of 2 meetings with children.

The first group children with the Chernobyl syndrome, the friend a meeting teenagers mentally retarded.

President Lora