How to celebrate Christmas - celebrate Christmas
In winter, the whole baptized world with joy celebrates the long-awaited bright holiday of the Nativity of Christ. Catholics and Protestants do this according to the Gregorian calendar or the old style on December 24-25, while the Orthodox world celebrates according to the Julian calendar or a new style on January 6-7.Many deeply religious and new-believing Christians strictly follow religious traditions and try to fulfill all church canons. For this purpose, since November 28, they are trying to keep the Christmas fast - one of the strictest in the Orthodox calendar. On the sixth of January in the evening, with the rise of the first star - the symbol of the news of the birth of Christ - this ritual ends, and festive services begin in all the churches and temples.
The rest of the people, having a little rest from the noisy and cheerful New Year holidays, are thinking about how to celebrate Christmas - a bright family holiday, when you can get together with family and friends, and talk heartily, having arranged pleasant gatherings. And also to pay tribute to the folk pagan traditions: to have fun, to build, make wishes, to learn the condemned, to betray to the further destiny.
How to get started
Long before the Christmas holiday, during the New Year's holiday, you need to prepare souvenirs and gifts that will please your family and children, and also fill with meaning evening gatherings on Christmas Eve and a jolly day on January 7.
Closer to the landmark date, the sixth of January morning, you need to decorate your home with coniferous branches, candles, bells, snowflakes and angels, postcards and paper lanterns. The entrance door is usually decorated with a Christmas wreath made of fir-trees with cones and bright tinsel.
And how to celebrate Christmas without the most important attribute - a dressed up live spruce? !Coniferous aroma will fill the whole house with the feeling of an approaching holiday. If you put this magic tree back in the New Year, you can decorate it with Christmas decorations: a Bethlehem star, angels of salted dough or paper. Under it, it would be good to build an impromptu den with straw, nursery and baby Jesus. It is not necessary to search for natural hay or straw, you can make them yourself, cutting thin strips of paper, and creches - to mold from plasticine or other ornamental material. Such an occupation together with children along with the artistic meaning will educate the children to respect the traditions through the game and fairy magic. If you did not manage to get a real tree, you can limit yourself to any coniferous branches.
It is customary to invite the godparents and godchildren to visit the bright Christmas holiday. Even at the meeting at the front door you need to present them with gifts. If you like needlework, then you can come in handy related to love, warm mittens or a scarf. To spend Christmas with people close by faith - this custom promises reliable protection and support in life.
On Christmas Eve, January 6, in advance in the morning, cook osobo or kutya - wheat or rice porridge with raisins, nuts and fruits. However, you will not have to taste it before the appearance of the star, or when the sky is cloudy, you will need to wait for the darkness. The table at this time should be covered with starched white tablecloth - a symbol of purity and divine light, and the menu - low-fat, as the Christmas season continues. But it must be attended by at least 12 dishes - according to the number of apostles. In addition, kutya allowed church rules: fish, vegetables, vareniki, sauerkraut and salted mushrooms, low-fat pastries( rolls, pies).Drinking is welcomed by the uzvar - a compote of dried fruits boiled with boiling water with the addition of honey. Nowadays, our compatriots drink tea at this time. At the beginning of the meal, each guest and hosts eat three spoonfuls of kutya in honor of the Holy Trinity.
The next morning you can celebrate Christmas by fasting high-calorie meat dishes: a young piglet, roast goose, duck, turkey or chicken, stuffed apples, sauerkraut, mushrooms or porridge. The same 12 necessary dishes can include: fish, pancakes, jelly, roast with mushrooms, homemade sausages and ham, sweet pastries( roll with poppy and honey, gingerbread, cookies, pies).By this day, the housewives are preparing Christmas pies or muffins and "rich" kutya. To the traditional dish, served on Christmas Eve, you can add cream or condensed milk, different nuts. In order to properly spend Christmas, you need to avoid a noisy feast, you can not treat guests with champagne on this day. It is appropriate to warm a friendly atmosphere with leisurely conversations, congratulations on the holy holiday.
But on the evening of January 7, children and adults usually dressed in the skins and costumes of a goat, bear, wolf, fox and went to caroling. Learned on the eve of carols-songs as a "golden key" opened the doors of friends, friends and relatives. The "mummers" jumped in a noisy band and began to "sow" a grain with a housing for prosperity in the house and owners - for health and well-being. The hosts must give everyone some sweets: baked goods or sweets and awarded with coins or a small amount of money.
If on Christmas Eve it was possible to go outside at three o'clock in the morning( or go to church at that time) and make a cherished wish for the "open skies", then from the seventh to the eighteenth of January, the Christmas season began - a period of fun and interesting fortune-telling! Unmarried girls in these 12 days wanted to know if they would marry this year and the name of the betrothed, and adults - whether this year will be a rich harvest. All these evenings people sledged, played snowballs, sculpted snowmen, sang, danced, launched fireworks, firecrackers, salutes. Everywhere there were folk festivals, funny games and entertaining theatrical performances.
In the morning, after celebrating Christmas, you need to visit the temple, put candles, ask the saints for health, happiness and well-being for loved ones. All 12 days of Svyatok one could serve complimentary notes, the Divine Liturgies were held daily in temples. And the children ran to feed the hungry birds in the morning with crumbs left after the festive celebration.
The bright holiday of the Nativity of Christ is filled with love and forgiveness - the best reason to get rid of old grievances, misunderstandings and sincerely have fun with family and friends!