Ukrainian Christmases, My Grandma and War

It is January, 6, Orthodox Christmas. Or as a journalist of New York Times wrote in their recent article, “A russian Orthodox Christmas”. The phrase immediately attracted attention of Ukrainian users, who have spent the past year trying to Ukr-splaine the world to the Westerners, and who note that Orthodoxy is as much russian as it is Greek, Georgian or Ukrainian. But waking up in Kharkiv, I ask my parents if we are planning a festive dinner tonight, and my dad says, “probably no”. Mom adds, “We’’ll make something for the Old New Year. Cold meet and pies for sure.” And I start to ask myself, given that Ukrainian Orthodox Church supports the 24th December now, should we, ordinary slightly atheistic Ukrainians go on with it, and simply give January 6th up?

It is true that celebrating Christmas on the 24th of December has become quite popular among my friends in their late 20s — early 30s. The past couple of years I have celebrated in Ukraine in various groups of friends, while our parents were sleeping in front of the TV in their homes, with no idea this day could be special in any way. We baked coins in the pies, listened to Sinatra, made wishes and exchanged small symbolic gifts. It wasn’t anything in the scope of British dinners, but rather something… new. Something we have been creating from scratch.