Skip to main content

The holiday season part III: Christmas Day

Christmas was fairly quiet. In fact, it was weird celebrating Christmas when no one else was (except the Americans living here)! For those of you who don't know, Ukrainians celebrate Christmas on January 7th, and even then its not that big of a holiday. The real holiday is New Year's. More on that later (The holiday season part MCIVIII). Some friends in America asked me if we had a tree, and the answer is yes no. We didn't have time for one and we also didn't really feel like spending the money to buy a tree, lights, and decorations, so I improvised!
Our first Christmas tree in Ukraine! This was the most convenient Christmas tree ever. It took 30 seconds to put up; I think I will sell it on Ebay because it's so little fuss!

Christmas morning started with Daniel making me breakfast in bed! I love him. For some reason, I love him. Next on the agenda was presents! I got Daniel a bunch of stuff imported from Poland, including cherry coke, Polish whoppers, a book called The Man who Broke into Auschwitz, and a manly scarf. Daniel got me lots of stuff for the kitchen--an oven mitt, a utensil holder with utensils, and some candles. However, best of all, he got me a treasure chest!!! He also got me some tools and a DVD. More on the tools later! I am making them "special."
We went to Safe Haven for church, and many of the kids wished us a Merry Christmas in English (with lovely accents)! I wore a Christmas sweater that some friends sent me from the thrift store I used to work at, and everyone loved it!
On our way back from Safe Haven, we stopped by Meisha's to use internet. We both got to talk to everyone in our families, and that was wonderful. It was so good to hear everyone's voices!
We had banana bread for dinner and that concluded our first Christmas in Ukraine. However, the season was far from over!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The power of a hug

Three weeks ago at church, Masha sat next to me.   Masha is ten, has Downs Syndrome and is a fantastic hugger.  She just loves hugging.  So I try to always stop and hug her back.  During the service, she came in and sat between me and her dad, for a while she loved on her dad and then she leaned her head on my shoulder, so I leaned my head over onto hers, and she looked up at me with this big smile.  She reached around and gave me a shoulder hug, and then patted my head, and then rubbed my back for a few minutes.  I didn’t move the entire time because it just felt so good.  It was just simple, innocent affection, and it sent tingles up my spine.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about you need more hugs and back scratches. Human contact is so important.  That’s why I try and hug the kids when we go up to the orphanage.  These are just a few stories of some of the hugs I’ve given and gotten this past month, and why hugs are so imp...

The Costs of Dehumanization

  Our friends, Marina and Ira, have family in Russia.   Not long after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, they spoke with those family members.   Those in Russia expressed their disgust that people in Ukraine were eating children.   Marina and Ira’s reaction was naturally surprise and horror.   In the early days of the war, back in 2014, state-controlled Russian news agencies had started to run a story about a young boy that had been crucified in Ukraine’s eastern territories.  The narrative was that this was what Ukrainians were doing to Russian speakers.  It didn’t take long for the story to be debunked.  But this was primarily outside of Russia, most people within Russia kept hearing this story, and stories like it. Over the years, the stories grew to the point where Russian citizens were hearing that Ukrainians were regularly eating babies.   This is why Marina and Ira were having this conversation.  They told their r...

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain: Why shopping is a pain in Ukraine.

I used to like shopping. I thought it was fun. I love closure, and so nothing was more satisfying than crossing items off a list. I enjoyed the experience of checking out new stuff, looking for bargains, and of course everyone knows that buying stuff feels good.   That was then. This is now. Shopping here is a pain. Let me explain (hey, I’m a poet and I don’t even realize it)! First, we don’t have a car. That means we are at the mercy of public transportation, and so we have to keep that in mind when choosing what store to go to. Is it close to a bus or metro stop? Do we have to transfer metro lines? When we lived in the city center, we were really close to two metro lines. We like this store called MegaMarket, and it was only a few stops away on the metro. So, we would grab our backpacks, walk a block to the metro, go down a ridiculously long escalator, then hop on a metro and ride a couple stops down.   Then we would walk a few blocks and there it was..…Megamarket! Second re...