It may seem a bit late for a Christmas post...but not in Ukraine! The majority of Ukraine is Eastern Orthodox, so the country operates based on the Eastern Orthodox Liturgical Calendar - where Christmas happens on January 7th.
Ukrainian Holiday Traditions
The holidays operate a bit differently here than in the US; here is a brief summary. Rather than giving gifts at Christmas, children receive gifts under their pillows from Saint Nicholas (and people exchange small gifts in general) on Saint Nicholas Day, which falls on December 19th on the Orthodox calendar. Ukrainians buy Christmas trees, which they call New Years trees, around the end of December. New Years, celebrated by most people on January 1st, is the biggest holiday of the year - with many people hosting or attending New Years Eve parties that last all night long into New Years Day. We are told that some lucky children also receive gifts on New Years from Дід Мороз ("Grandfather Frost", who is pretty similar to Santa Claus). Christmas Eve (January 6th) is celebrated with a huge family meal - complete with 12 different traditional dishes! This feast is the biggest Christmas tradition here. Our church holds a Christmas Day service in the afternoon on January 7th; we aren't sure if this is typical of the more traditional churches or not. We hear that some extra lucky children have families who exchange gifts on Christmas Day as well. The "Old New Year" (New Years according to the old liturgical calendar) is celebrated on January 14th. Apparently carolers come around and sing at people's homes, expect tips, and throw wheat into your house for good luck! We'll keep you posted if this happens to us! Although this surely doesn't encompass all the traditions surrounding Christmas in Ukraine, it gives you a taste of some of the typical holiday celebrations in this part of the world!
Our Holiday Season...
Although it's certainly been different than Christmas in the US, we have had a wonderful holiday season, experiencing a new culture and its traditions, celebrating our own traditions, and reflecting on the same age-old truths that bring this season of year meaning.
The young adults ministry and English Club have taken a brief pause during the busy holiday season. University students are at home with families, and the young adults that live in L'viv are busy with holiday and family activities. English Club fell on our Christmas Day, New Years Day, and the Ukrainian Christmas Day, so it made sense to take a break during the holidays. We look forward to getting back to our normal rhythm with both of those ministries next week. Over the holidays, we continued our weekly visits with the orphans, which was great since we had been away from them for a couple weeks while in the US. We have also continued the poor ministry - which, praise God, officially started on December 6th!
The young adults ministry and English Club have taken a brief pause during the busy holiday season. University students are at home with families, and the young adults that live in L'viv are busy with holiday and family activities. English Club fell on our Christmas Day, New Years Day, and the Ukrainian Christmas Day, so it made sense to take a break during the holidays. We look forward to getting back to our normal rhythm with both of those ministries next week. Over the holidays, we continued our weekly visits with the orphans, which was great since we had been away from them for a couple weeks while in the US. We have also continued the poor ministry - which, praise God, officially started on December 6th!
We've enjoyed getting to experience Christmas in a new place. L'viv has a picturesque Christmas market in the two main areas in the center of town: Площа Ринок (Market Square), surrounding town hall, and Проспект Свободи (Liberty Avenue), which is the avenue in front of L'viv's famous Opera House. Numerous vendors have stalls set up with food, mulled wine, hot chocolate, Christmas decorations, souvenirs, and traditional Ukrainian clothing and decor. It's very festive! The town even erected a temporary ice skating rink in Площа Ринок that will stay up all winter! It is a wonderful treat to live only a 15-minute walk away from all the excitement. We've even had few small snowfalls, which has added to the festive atmosphere!
It felt a little strange being in a country that doesn't celebrate Christmas on December 25th. Everything from stores to public transportation were operating on a normal schedule. Thankfully, between the Blessings, some other missionaries, and a friend from Cameroon, we had some company to celebrate the holiday with. A few days before Christmas, we attended a Christmas party the Blessings hosted for missionaries in L'viv. Meeting many others in the area and hearing more about the unique ministries where they serve was wonderful! It was a blessing to know that we're part of a larger community than we had realized.
We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning at the Blessings' house, where we sang Christmas carols, read the Christmas story, and opened gifts together. It was a treat to be able to spend a holiday with family, despite being half a world away from the rest of our family. The Blessings also enjoyed it; they told us this was the first Christmas they had ever had family in Ukraine to celebrate with them! We went home around lunch-time on Christmas so we could Skype with our families in Louisiana and Virginia on their Christmas morning. Our friend Peace, a medical school student from Cameroon who attends the young adults ministry, came over for dinner on Christmas Day as well.
Bria had her first solo concert for Christmas this year, which was a big step for her musical career. The concert was a big success - with nearly every seat in the hall was filled! Maggie played in a couple songs as well. The Strimples, a couple from Winchester hoping to adopt from Ukraine, visited L'viv for the concert. We had a fun time seeing faces from home and spending time with them.
Maggie's birthday is December 30th, so it always falls into the madness of the holiday season! It didn't get lost in the hubbub though; we had a full day of celebrating. We started the day with a visit to the orphanage and coffee with Krista, Lindsey, and Magda (a friend of the Blessings' from Germany) at a local coffee shop. The day continued with a delicious lunch out with the Blessings, a visit to L'viv's famous Chocolate Shop, flowers from Trey, and a fancy dinner at one of the hotels in town. For dinner, we both got delicious steaks. And not just any steaks; we had USDA certified beef, imported from the good old US of A!! Although it's generally cheap here, Ukrainian beef isn't nearly as good as what we could find at home on the sale racks of Harris Teeter. (Trey was our designated professional meat shopper in Virginia, and his general rule of thumb was never to buy meat unless it is at least half off.) We decided that a birthday dinner would be a perfect time to splurge for a little taste of home. It was so worth it!
The day after Maggie's birthday, we hosted a New Year's Eve party at our house for the young adults who were in town. Several people came, including a few new faces. We spent the evening eating, visiting, and playing Minute-to-Win-It games, which were a big hit! The last guests left at 3:30 a.m., which people told us is pretty early for guests to leave a New Year's party here! After our guests left, we Face-timed briefly with our friends from our couples K-group (small group) in Leesburg, who were a few hours from ringing in the New Year together in Virginia. What a blessing to see old and new friends an ocean apart on the same day! On New Years Day, we went to the Blessings and joined in on their New Year's traditions - a family game of Life and a meal consisting of one dish chosen by each person in the family. We had Greek, Indian, Mexican, and American food! Below is a slideshow of pictures from New Year's. If you are a subscriber and are reading this as an email, click here to view the blog entry in your browser, where you can see the slideshow.
On January 6th (Ukrainian Christmas Eve), our Ukrainian friends, the Chaplayevs, invited us over for dinner at their apartment in L'viv. Their family doesn't typically do the 12-course traditional dinner, but they did make a few traditional Ukrainian dishes for us to try. Larisa, is a phenomenal cook, so we were spoiled with some great dishes, several of which we hadn't tried before. Vasya is an elder at the church and usually preaches if Mark is out of town. Larisa is a trained counselor and is opening up a Christian biblical counseling center in L'viv, which they are very excited about. Dima just finished his Masters Degree in Applied Mathematics a few weeks ago; he plays in the worship band, translates/interprets for church and young adults gatherings, and loves board games. Marina, who was unable to join us during the evening, is involved in the fashion industry and has a blog where she reviews cosmetics and beauty products; she speaks English very well and sometimes interprets for church/for us.
For dinner, we had голубці, холодець, вінегрет, гречка, and pizza (which Dima made). The only thing we weren't able to get too excited about was холодець, which is a cold meat gelatin dish. Thankfully, Dima had warned his family that Americans never like this dish, so they weren't too surprised when we had a hard time with the texture.
After dinner, we played a game called Sabateurs followed by Settlers of Catan. It was Vasya and Larisa's first time playing Settlers, but they got into it pretty quickly! We had a lot of fun, and there was lots of conversation in Russian and English (and some Ukrainian as well - the Chaplayevs speak mostly Russian at home, but of course speak Ukrainian too). Thankfully Dima translated the whole night, as his parents don't speak English and we are a long way from being fluent in Ukrainian (although we're working on it!), not to mention Russian.
Yesterday, January 7th, we enjoyed celebrating Ukrainian Christmas with our friends at Церква Живе Слово singing Christmas carols, reading the Christmas story, and ending the night with Silent Night by candlelight. Maggie played with the worship band and also played a solo piece - a medley of O Holy Night and The First Noel.
For Christmas gifts (on December 25th), we each gave each other a вишиванка ("vyshyvanka"), a traditional Ukrainian ethnic shirt, covered in hand-stitched embroidery. We wore them for the Christmas service, so we made sure to get a few pictures with our friends afterwards.