Our family celebrates two Christmases, yes you read that right, two. The first is in December (24/25). We always host a party for relatives and very close friends on the 24th but all the gifts from everyone are piled under our large tree. On the 25th, everyone opens their presents BUT in a ceremonial way. Only 1 person at a time wears this mega-size Santa hat and chooses a gift from under the tree, although it cannot be a gift to themselves. The gift is given to the lucky person and after opening it, they take the mega-size Santa hat and so forth. We initially used fake reindeer antlers but as each person bent down, it knocked around the tree ornaments and some fairly expensive ones broke, however, I decided to recycle it by putting reindeer antlers on both our dogs.

The second is the "Ukranian Christmas", which lasts from January 6th to January 19th, although we only celebrate it on 6th, plus an extra 2-3 days. The reason for this discrepancy is that most countries, including Canada and the US use the Gregorian calender, which is newer, however, Russia and Ukraine (and possibly some other countries) stuck to the Julian calender longer, switching to the Gregorian in 1918. Traditionally, the Ukraine Christmas emphasizes the biblical tales, going as far as putting hay on traditional tablecloths. Our family deviates from tradition because the dinner isn't meant to include fish, eggs or meat, although we do make meat for dinner. For lunch, we hard-boil several eggs, then cut them in pieces, so each of us (3 in total) can have 1 piece of each egg, followed by kielbasa, slices of bread and then our own lunches. For dinner, we cook some sort of meat, usually a roast, along with Borscht soup (beet soup), herring, varenyky (Ukranian perogies), holubtsi (cabbage rolls stuffed with kasha, meat and vegetables), sauerkraut mixed with various vegetables, and rice. Kasha is sort of like buckwheat cereal, it's hard to describe without having tried it. Traditionally, it's meant to be kutia as a rice pudding but we use a rice cooker for Asian rice (the kind used in Japanese sushi). It's kind of a weird mix of Japanese-Ukraniane-somewhat America cooking. I'm not sure if in Ukraine people give presents on the first day but because we celebrate Christmas in December, there are only small gifts given during the Ukranian Christmas and it's only reserved for near-by Ukranian relatives. There are numerous Ukranian relatives in Ukraine, Russia and elsewhere but I don't know who they are, I'm not even sure if my father knows all them, although he knows a few.

So, how do you celebrate Christmas, when and with whom?