The Spirit of Christmas

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and will have a very Happy New Year to come! This is my last full day in Russia for about two weeks – tonight I head to Istanbul for an extended weekend trip, then I come back to Moscow to ring in the New Year with my friends at a holiday party. New Year’s Eve is the equivalent of Christmas in Russia, due to the Orthodox calendar being on a different time frame than the Catholic calendar. Instead of our traditional December 25th, families exchange gifts and celebrate together on New Year’s Eve, then they celebrate church Christmas on January 7^th. The national holidays last from January 1^st to January 8^th, during which I will be taking my first trip to Germany to visit some Mankato friends, who are currently living near Frankfurt. I’m very much looking forward to some sightseeing combined with rest and relaxation over the next two weeks. I hope you all have an equally enjoyable holiday break.

Festivities in Red Square

Although it was hard to be away from home for the holidays again, I realized how much I enjoyed being in a foreign country that celebrates Christmas again. In Korea, Christmas was a nominal and artificial holiday, as most of Korea is traditionally Buddhist. But in Russia traditions are similar to Western traditions, the colors and decorations are the same, and though the dates are different, the spirit of Christmas is still prevalent. There were lights up all around the city, Starbucks had holiday drinks, and most of the stores had beautiful holiday displays to admire. I ventured to the city center a couple of times throughout the month to see and enjoy some of the festivities in Red Square.

Fabulous fur coats

Another part of the Christmas spirit was experiencing a proper winter again. Though we weren’t nearly as cold as most of the Midwest this month, we still had significant amounts of snow and below freezing temps. One of my favorite winter activities has become admiring the beautiful and extravagant fur coats that the ladies have started wearing, complete with matching fur hats, stoles, gloves, you name it. I don’t believe I will ever wear one but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying them. Every time one of the teachers comes into the school with their fabulous fur coats I start petting it. Don’t tell PETA.

Skating success! 

In addition to fur coat spotting, this winter I’ve made a comeback to one of my favorite cold weather activities from childhood: ice skating. On the first day of December, I finally broke my seven year streak and got back on the ice with my proudest ever purchase: a $12 pair of ice skates from my local grocery store. A group of us – two Canadians, a fellow Minnesotan, and a Tennessean – all got together for the evening skating session at Gorky Park, the largest skating rink in Europe. You can guess which one of us was on the ice the most. But she improved significantly by the end of the evening.

Skating at Gorky Park

Gorky Park by night

Gorky Park was fantastic – some of the walking paths have been flooded and iced over, so it’s more like going for a stroll instead of skating around in a circle. At night it really is something special, with all of the colored lights on the trees and lining the trails. There was live music and recorded music playing, and one of my favorite parts was to skate directly over the lights they had installed underneath the ice before they froze it. There are a few cafes and even a restaurant that you can skate right up to walk inside, then sit at a table still in your skates to take a coffee break or have a meal. After we ate dinner at the restaurant the crowds thinned out significantly, though the ice was choppy. That was the only disadvantage to coming on a Sunday evening – there were so many people that it didn’t even matter if you could skate well – you just had to skate enough to keep from either crashing into people or keeping people from crashing into you. Kind of like bumper cars…but on ice and with skates. The skate rental is free, with a deposit, and the ticket prices are the most expensive in the evenings on the weekends, but for the experience we all agreed it was worth it. And with an added bonus of a light snow falling, it made for a perfect winter evening. We ended up going again two weeks later, and although I think it gave me a cold because we were out for so long, it was probably worth it.

As we did for both Canadian and American Thanksgiving, we also had an expat Christmas party this past Sunday, where we all contributed some of our favorite holiday foods, and had a lovely potluck and gift exchange. Most of us will be spread out among the European continent and the States for the next two weeks, having experiences which will be fun to hear about once we all return and get together again.

Expat Christmas 2013

Santa came to visit!

As indicated above, I worked on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but because all of the students and teachers knew they were holiday days for us American teachers, plus it was just before a two week holiday, we all allowed lessons to slide a bit. Who really gets anything done the last week of school before holidays anyway? Instead, we had visits from ‘Santa’ (they have a rough equivalent they call Grandfather Frost, but the biographies are a little different for these two characters. No chimneys or reindeer for Grandfather Frost), we played Christmas games, and topped off the week with a Christmas movie and some cookies.

Christmas Eve Church

On Christmas Eve I headed straight to the city center after work to join some friends for a 10:30 pm church service at an Anglican church in the city center. It was definitely an expat gathering, as I heard English spoken all around me in a variety of accents, and the pastor performed a traditional English church service. It was wonderful to sing Christmas carols and read the scriptures - and by the time the service ended it was officially Christmas! On Christmas Day I only had to teach two classes, then headed to the center again to spend some time in Red Square with some friends and enjoy the beautiful lights and Christmas markets.

Snowy St. Basil's 

So, despite having a busy and stressful December due to graduate school application materials (now finished!), and of course being away from home for the holidays, I also had a fun month enjoying the traditional Christmas spirit. Although being with the people you love is the most important part of the holidays, also being surrounded by at atmosphere of joy, beauty, anticipation, and generosity is an aspect to realize and appreciate. My moments drinking Peppermint Mochas at Starbucks, singing Christmas songs at church, or walking around Red Square to admire the giant Christmas tree allowed me to have my own private Christmas cheer, because these things reminded me of home. And now, I’m so thankful that my Mankato friends have agreed to host me next week in Germany, as being with familiar faces at this time of year will be exactly what I need.

Merry Christmas from Red Square!

Once again, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to your New Year’s celebrations, wherever they may be. Best wishes for a fantastic New Year!