My favorite holiday

There are some dates which are holidays in this country. The first holiday of the year begins with the New Year Day on the first of January. On the eve of the New Year Day, that is at night of the thirty first of December, we are usually at home with our family or with our friends. Our New Year tree is decorated with toys. At 12 o'clock we wish each other "Happy New Year!" We give presents to our friends and to all the family. Children like this holiday very much, because their winter holidays begin with the New Year day and last two weeks. They have a lot of fun then. They dance and sing round a New Year tree with Father Frost and Snow Maiden. During the winter holidays children do not study, they can play hockey, skate, ski and others. The next holiday which is celebrated in Ukraine is Christmas. It takes places on the 7th of January. This religious holiday began to be marked only some years ago. We do not study on this day now. On the eight of March we celebrated one more holiday. It is International Women's Day. On this day we present our dear women with flowers. This day is also a day off. Victory Day, the anniversary of the victory over fascist Germany, comes on the ninth of May. My most favorite holiday is the New Year Day and Christmas.

My favorite holiday (Christmas)

    My favourite holiday is Christmas as it is the most cheerful festival and is of religious origin. It’s the day when Christians celebrate the birth of Christ. The Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas on 7 January according to the Julian calendar. In the middle of the 4th century it was established by the Roman Catholic Church as a separate feast. Now the Catholic Church celebrates Christmas on 25 December according to the Gregorian calendar.

    The Christmas Eve is considered as the most interesting part of Christmas as it has ritual and magic acts aimed at ensuring a good harvest and a life of plenty. Carolling is a characteristic feature of the feast, it expresses respect for the master of the house and his children, and sometimes it’s accompanied by a puppet theatre (vertep). The religious festival lasts three days and involves Christmas liturgies, carolling, visiting and entertaining relatives and acquaintances.

In Ukraine its main feature is Holy Supper consisting of 12 dishes, when the family gathers around the dining table. The first dish is "kutya”. The beginning of the holy supper is signaled by the first star. There is also a custom for the Ukrainian children to go from house to house at Christmas to proclaim "Christ is born” and to sing Christmas carols. They expect some money or candies in return for their musical efforts. Everybody likes Christmas, but a folk proverb says: "Christmas comes but once a year”.

 Christmas

Christmas is a wonderful holiday, it’s a feast of Christ’s birth and it’s celebrated on the eve of 7th of January. In the mid-4th century it was established by the Roman Catholic church as a separate feast and was celebrated on 25 December according to the Julian calendar. In the 10th century with the introduction of the Christianity into Rus it was fused with the local pagan celebrations of the sun’s return or the commencement of the agricultural year. In some areas was used the pre-Christian name of the feast — Koliada. The Christmas Eve is considered as the most interesting part of Christmas as it has ritual and magic acts aimed at ensuring a good harvest and a life of plenty. Carolling is a characteristic feature of the feast, it expresses respect for the master of the house and his children, and sometimes it’s accompanied by a puppet theatre (vertep). The religious festival lasts three days and involves Christmas liturgies, carolling, visiting and entertaining relatives and acquaintances. The Christmas tree was adopted from Western Europe, but today it’s the element of the New Year celebration in Ukraine.

The «holy supper» on Christmas Eve is a meal of 12 ritual meatless and milkless dishes. The order of the dishes and dishes themselves aren’t uniform everywhere. In the Hutsul region, for example, the dishes were served in the following order: beans, fish, boiled potato, dumplings, cabbage rolls, kutya, potatoes mashed with garlic, stewed fruit, plums with beans and some other dishes.

Christmas is the holiday when all members of the family gather together. This is the holiday of joy. Comparatively with Great Britain and some other countries Ukrainian people don’t exchange presents on this holiday. For many years only religious people observed this holiday, but today it’s an official state holiday. Children like to have fun on this holiday, they go from door to door, sing carols and people give sweets to them. As it was already mentioned, «Kutya» is a traditional Ukrainian Christmas dish. It’s cooked by mothers and godchildren take it to their godparents. Although this holiday appeared long ago but nowadays many people still like to go church and listen to Christmas sermons.