The Holiday Season--Новый Год и Рожество

In Russia by far the biggest holiday is New Year's. In the last two or three years, the government extended the national holiday season to extend from January 1 through Russian Christmas, January 7. With a little more fine tuning, the actual holiday was ten days. Workers traded the Friday after Christmas for the following Sunday. The good part was ten or eleven consecutive vacation days; the down side was that Sunday was an ordinary work day for many, even public schools.

New Year's Eve is similar to American Christmas in some ways. There is a decorated tree, gift exchange, "Grandfather Frost" (who often wears blue instead of the traditional red of Santa Claus), and lots of colored lights in homes and outside displays. Before midnight is family time, filled with many traditions and gift exchange. After welcoming the new year, the children are put to bed while adults head off to parties for the rest of the night. Fireworks are set off at midnight to welcome the new year and continue until morning.

Since the vacation time is eight or ten days, many people will travel to neighboring cities or even other countries. Turkey and Egypt are popular destinations. Of course, snow skiing is popular, as well as ice skating in outdoor rinks, often at one of the many parks or even Red Square. Most of Moscow is flat, but there are some hills for downhill skiing. Cross-country skiing is very popular, even with little children.

Christmas is celebrated according to the Orthodox calendar, so it falls on January 7. Many people attend a late-night service on Christmas eve. The main Orthodox church in the center of Moscow began its ceremonies at 11 pm and went for at least three hours--and there are no seats in Orthodox churches! Christmas is only a religious holiday. As mentioned earlier, Santa, gifts, and decorations are all connected with New Year's.

We enjoyed the holiday season because we had the time to do lots of visiting and fellowshipping with friends and neighbors. It's a great season when people aren't so busy and the routine slows down. We always look for opportunities to talk about the important message of Christmas, that Jesus came as God in the flesh.