Lauren’s New Year’s Blog
It’s 9am and Michael has just left to see the kids without me. I’ve been nursing a bad cold for two days and while I’m certainly on the mend, another day at home is definitely the way to go. I hate not seeing the kids, especially since we are now on an every-other-day schedule. But at least I was able to write Nastia a note in Ukrainian that I hope she’ll understand. (She reads a lot to us now in Ukrainian, anything that’s on the walls and blackboards, so the hope is my basic Ukrainian won’t be the challenge, though my quirky vocabulary might – according to my Ukrainian friend and tutor Maksim, I closed with “I miss you” but according to a dictionary I bought here, I might be saying, “I grieve for you” – let’s hope Nastia takes my point!)
I’m sitting in our little kitchen looking out over the main square below, which Michael has mentioned several times. Directly across from us, in front of former communist headquarters, a formidable, somewhat regal looking building, and a prominent statue of Lenin, is a big, what we would call, Christmas tree. Only here they call it a New Year’s tree and the only holiday signs you see say “Z Novim Rokom!” – Happy New Year! Yet this tree, 40 feet tall and decorated beautifully, is trimmed at the bottom with pictures of “Did Moroz” – Santa Clause.
Michael and I are sure New Year’s trees are a vestige of the communist era, when religion was discouraged. (Our translator told us when her mother was a girl, people would wait outside the church to see who attended and if you did, the next day in school the teacher would admonish you for it!) In line with that, the big holiday here is New Year’s, while Christmas, which is celebrated by the dominant Russian Orthodox population here on January 7, is not nearly the big deal it is in the States.
I woke up at 5am this morning for a cup of tea and looked outside to see the 40 ft New Year’s tree fully lit in all its holiday splendor. And it’s just so curious that they would keep this tree lit ALL night when in the government building right behind it (and any building you walk into anywhere here), lights are almost never on during daylight hours, and you endure darkened hallways, offices, (court rooms!). But apparently in Ukraine, New Year’s ‘tis the season.
So let me take this opportunity to wish all of you who have been reading this blog and sharing in our joys as well as the T & T (trials and tribulations), a wonderful, happy and healthy New Year. I hope I get to hug each and every one of you soon (!) and introduce you to our two new beautiful children.
Next year in Miami!