New Year in Ukraine
Christmas is a wonderful holiday, it’s a feast of Christ’s birth and
it’s celebrated on the eve of 7th of January. In the mid-4th century it
was established by the Roman Catholic church as a separate feast and was
celebrated on 25 December according to the Julian calendar. In the 10th
century with the introduction of the Christianity into Rus it was fused
with the local pagan celebrations of the sun’s return or the
commencement of the agricultural year. In some areas was used the
pre-Christian name of the feast — Koliada. The Christmas Eve is
considered as the most interesting part of Christmas as it has ritual
and magic acts aimed at ensuring a good harvest and a life of plenty.
Caroling is a characteristic feature of the feast, it expresses respect
for the master of the house and his children, and sometimes it’s
accompanied by a puppet theatre (vertep). The religious festival lasts
three days and involves Christmas liturgies, caroling, visiting and
entertaining relatives and acquaintances. The Christmas tree was adopted
from Western Europe, but today it’s the element of the New Year
celebration in Ukraine.
The «holy supper» on Christmas Eve is a meal of 12 ritual meatless
and milkless dishes. The order of the dishes and dishes themselves
aren’t uniform everywhere. In the Hutsul region, for example, the dishes
were served in the following order: beans, fish, boiled potato,
dumplings, cabbage rolls, kutya, potatoes mashed with garlic, stewed
fruit, plums with beans and some other dishes.
Christmas is the holiday when all members of the family gather
together. This is the holiday of joy. Comparatively with Great Britain
and some other countries Ukrainian people don’t exchange presents on
this holiday. For many years only religious people observed this
holiday, but today it’s an official state holiday. Children like to have
fun on this holiday, they go from door to door, sing carols and people
give sweets to them. As it was already mentioned, «Kutya» is a
traditional Ukrainian Christmas dish. It’s cooked by mothers and
godchildren take it to their godparents. Although this holiday appeared
long ago but nowadays many people still like to go church and listen to
Christmas sermons.