Happy New Year or “Who said eating after 6pm was bad for you?"

I have celebrated 10 “New Year’s” in Russia.  

(Good Night!  Did I just type that?  Unbelievable!)

I can’t say that they have all been the same, but they have certainly been similar - all have involved late-night eating before a television set!

New Year’s is the biggest holiday of the Russian year.  It has traditionally been celebrated even before the Soviet Union, but became the great national holiday under the communist government.  The first years after the Revolution it was banned and, then brought back, as a substitute for the Christmas celebration.  Many of the traditions we know of as Christmas practices, Russians think of in combination with New Year’s Eve.

Every year, since becoming a member of the Yastrebov family, I have celebrated the New Year with my in-law’s, in their apartment in Smolensk.  Little changed in those 4 years - we are a people of tradition!

Let me share with you our 2009-2010 New Year's  . . . . 

It officially started the week before. 

My in-laws put up their New Year tree, my mom-in-law went shopping, started cooking and baking, and we wrapped all the presents we would take to my in-laws’ on New Year’s Eve.

Anton and my father-in-law worked a half-day on the 31st.  Anton came home, had a snack, and, at around 8pm we got ready to go to his parent's apartment to see in the New Year!

Here is Sophia walking to the car New Year’s night - on our way!

When we arrived at my in-laws’ - the table had been set, the presents were under the tree, and the TV was on.  

New Year’s eve the major Russian channels have variety/song and dance programs all night - and no commercials!  

Every New Years’ celebration I have ever been to at a private home - the TV has been on all night!  

First thing - time to EAT!  

What will we ALWAYS find on our table?  The “extra’s” may vary, but the staples never change.

Salads: 

“Silotka pod Shube” translated “Herring under a Fur Coat”  - it is herring with onion, beets, and lots of mayo - and it is my husband’s absolute favorite!  (I, on the other hand, pass on this salad.)

“Oliviye” is my favorite salad - finely chopped potatoes, eggs, chicken (or ham), green peas, pickles - all covered in the much-loved mayo!  So delicious with a slice of black bread and a slice of cheese.  (This is the one I pile on top of my plate!) 

Bread:

Wonderful, fresh Russian “Borodinsky” black bread (like a molasses bread - SO GOOD!)

Melt -in- your- mouth fresh white bread (baton)

Main Course:

Meat “the French way” - beef steak that has been tenderized, cooked with onions,cheese and sour cream

Boiled new potatoes

Dessert:

Chocolate cake - with jam filling

Christmas cookies - Sophi and I contributed 

LOTS of Russian dark chocolate (the best in the world!)

Drink:

Russian compote - boiled fruit w/ a little sugar added

Tea

Coffee

Champagne! - at the strike of midnight!

As soon as the food is all ready (around 10 pm), Babushka Valya (Anton’s grandmother, Sophi’s Great Grandmother) comes from her room and we all sit down to eat.  We eat, talk, watch TV . . . slowly, savoring each course.

Just before midnight, the President comes on TV to congratulate the country - the clock strikes 12  - corks are popped and fireworks go off - all over this great country!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Next, and what Sophi has been waiting all night for . . . “Ded Marose/Grandfather Frost” comes!  Some families have a member dress the part and pass out gifts, some hire a “Grandfather Frost and Snow Maiden” to pass out gifts, and sometimes . . . in some families (like ours), the gifts just magically appear under the tree!

And, what was a leisurely family meal becomes a child’s dance!

And, little girls, all dressed up, twirl in a blaze of light - passing out packages . . . 

Because maybe there’s a new, stuffed “like real” bunny (just like Velveteen Rabbit) under there - and maybe it has it’s own special house that Dedushka made!

And, just MAYBE there is a doctor’s kit, with a doctor’s smock . . . just like the little girl dreamed of!

But, soon, the dance and dancer lose energy.

2 o’clock in the morning silliness sets in ...

 And, it’s clear to everyone that it is time to go home!

HAPPY NEW 2010 YEAR!

Christmas, New Year’s, and Christmas again!

Whew!  Just taking a minute to catch my breath . . . it has been a busy holiday season. 

Our family celebrates Christmas on Dec 25th (as I grew up doing in the States) and, then, we celebrate New Year’s Eve with Anton’s family (as he grew up doing in the Soviet Union), and finally, we celebrate Christmas, again, on Jan 7th with our Russian Christian Brothers and Sisters.

We party - multi-cultural, multi-lingual, and multi-confessional!  WHOO HOO! 

I really do love it!

I was thinking about all of this the other day  . . . about our different celebration practices.  And I discovered a difference that I had never really noticed before.  See if you can follow my thought train . . . 

In the States, we start celebrating Christmas at the end of Nov/ beginning of Dec.  

We have parties and fun and say to each other, “Merry Christmas” until Christmas Day . . . then, the very next day, everything slows down (and comes down.)  

New Year’s is pretty much an after-thought for most of us.

We celebrate before for the holiday and on the holiday - and have a big “let-down” afterword.

In Russia, most put up their New Year tree (like our Christmas tree) the week before Christmas.  They work 1/2 day on New Year’s Eve - come home, and start getting the food ready for the New Year’s table (more about this later.) 

Then, most of the country has the next week off (until the 11th)  - and this is the party week!  

People rarely congratulate each other before the holiday. If they do, it is just during that week before and they say, “I congratulate you on the up-coming New Year holiday.”  

Only on the very strike of the clock and afterward (for the whole month) do people say, “Happy New Year” (and this way of congratulating is with all holidays, really.)  

Slowly the celebrations wind down . . . after the 7th (Orthodox Christmas) people get back on a regular schedule and finally, it’s back to work.  

Russians start with a Holiday BANG and party for a week until we’re all really tired of the holidays!  There is very little post-holiday depression - we’re all so tired, we’re ready to go back to “real life.”  

Not sure what these differences say about us... 

I would be very interested in hearing your ideas. 

                      

Please leave a comment! 

Our own little “Snow Maiden.”

My New Favorite Toy!

Nothing better in a child’s life than discovering all the cool things your new Christmas toys can do!  

I remember those “toy coma’s” - lasted for hours, nothing could (or should) distract me.  

That after-the-morning-gift-carnage “glow” . . . 

Well, as a fully (and, some might add, fluffy) grown adult, I’m experiencing some of those same feelings again.  

Yes, I have a NEW TOY - and it is so much FUN!

Do you know about the photo-fun site, Picnik?   Oh my goodness!  Just look at what you can make there:

Wonderful collages of your daughter’s first look at the Atlantic Ocean - with her cousins leading the fun.

More collages of family fun. . .  learning hurricane storm survival skills . . . in the beach front house . . . on the beach . . . in the actual storm.  (I REALLY thought the sliding glass doors were going to implode as the house rocked on the beams)

Or a lovely gift for your mother-in-law.

How about some extra-special gift tags? 

These are going to be so much fun New Year’s Night.  

(more about this Russian holiday to come . . . ) 

Plus, there are tons of cool editing tools, and special fonts. and borders, and stickers, and. . .  the creative possibilities are limitless!  

It is difficult for us to send Christmas presents to our family in the States from Russia . . . somehow, they all end up under “Olga the Postal Worker’s” New Year’s tree.  (ok, ok, that’s probably not really fair - but you get the idea . . . NOTHING thru the mail)  But this year everyone on our list got a beautiful photo collage - sent thru e-mail!   And the best part was it was “created”  “home-made”  in a neuvo-tech kinda way!  LOVE IT!

A BIG thank-you to my friend Tina for introducing me to my new toy!  

And, really, if you love pics, you gotta see Picnik!

I’m just gonna warn you now . . . new toy “coma” coming your way!

Christmas - Apartment Tour!

I’ve been Christmas surfing the web these past couple of weeks.  So many beautiful house tours in the blog world!  I was moved to share some of our traditional decorations . . . 

 “Dobro pashalovat! Zakhaditye”   

 “Welcome! Come in!”

Here is our little tree!  

This year I think it is the prettiest it’s ever been - in part because of our friends, Misha and Yulia, and their generous gift of really great lights!  (the strand was really long so we decided not to waste their beauty and put them around the window - the effect is a little disco, but festive!)

Under the tree we have:

• the tree skirt that Anton’s grandmother, Babushka Valya, made for us, 
• our stockings that I bought at GYM on Red Square in  Moscow several years ago, 
• Sophi has her new nativity set that Gran Gran and Pops gave her this year, 
• the HUGE pine cones I got at Lake Baikal (Siberia) many years ago, 
• some of my favorite “Gzhel” (Russian pottery) pieces of “Ded Maros and Snegurichka” (Grandfather Frost and Snow Maiden), 
• and our IKEA candle stick (for which we are frantically trying to find a replacement bulb so we can actually USE it!).

Here is a close up of Sophi’s Nativity set - she plays with it every day - making up all kinds of stories with the characters.  (I just wonder why they didn’t include the shepherds in the set?!)  

A big thank you to Mom and Dad for such a thoughtful and FUN gift!

Here is the top of our TV:

• Mom and Dad’s Christmas card with Sophia, Houston and Caroline (their grandkids), 
• and a nativity set that I bought several years ago at the Russian Orthodox gift shop in Moscow near the Christ the Savior Cathedral - at that time it was hard to find any Christmas decorations in Moscow, much less anything religious. It was a real treasure then, and still is today!

Sophia’s room:

• she has her own tree that her Babushka and Dedushka gave her last year, 
• we decorated her bunk bed, 
• and she as a stocking on her door . . . hmm, Mrs Santa better remember to put something on the list for that stocking . . .

The kitchen:

• red lights on the window that flash (SO New Orleans!), 
• tinsel on the appliance shelf, 
• and all my Christmas tins on top of the shelves - I collect them (hint, hint to Mr Santa! - sure would love a new one to add to the collection ...

Speaking of collections - here is our Christmas mug display!  The blue ones I got in Smolensk in 1997 - they have a kind of medieval nativity design - another unbelievable  find of the times.

Hope no one is offended by this shot - just want to show how we even have a festive toilet room!  Christmas EVERYWHERE!

Bathroom - and even the water pipes are “decked!”

The front door is wearing the bells Mama gave Sophia.

Sophi put them up just as her Gran Gran instructed and remembers her with LOVE every time they ring!

One of the ornaments I made this November during the “Nor’easter” on Virgina Beach. 

Howling winds at 50 mph rocking our beach house brought out the Christmas creativity in us all!  

One of my favorite ornaments - 

Anton gave it to me last year - in celebration of starting the building of our new house!  LOVE IT!

This is my stocking - so cute - see the little mice?  they are celebrating New Year’s (which is the bigger Russian holiday)  the bottom shows the clock at midnight and the table ready to eat and presents ready to open . . . the whole spirit of that holiday on my stocking!

And, we’ll close the tour with a beautiful hand-painted Russian ornaments - “Dyed Maroz and Sneguroshka/Grandfather Frost and Snow Maiden.”

We’d love to have you visit us in person!

Merry Christmas from The Yastrebov’s!

A Teachable Moment

Yesterday at breakfast Sophia was asking me (in only the way 3 yr olds can) over and over, 

“Mom, what vitamins 

do apples have . . . 

do oranges have . . 

do grapes have?”

  

I have no idea and got tired of saying over and over (as only tired Mom’s can), 

“I don’t know, Sophi - 

don’t know - 

don’t know - 

have no idea.”  

Finally, a light-bulb went off in my head and I said,

“After breakfast, we’ll look it up on the computer.” 

At that, Sophi inhaled the rest of her eggs and we set off to learn about vitamins!

First, we made a chart where we:  

1.  Wrote the name of the fruit

2.  Drew a picture of the fruit

• We looked up the vitamin and mineral content of each fruit on the net 
• Wrote what we discovered on our chart

What a great practice for so many things - 

• letters, letter sounds, words, shapes, and colors
• and we both learned about the vitamins in our favorite fruit!

I loved it because it was spontaneous and lots of FUN!

At one point, Sophi decided that all her friends needed to watch and learn as we worked and she brought them in and set them up!

Just love those Teachable Moments!