Wednesday, 02 December 2009 00:05
Today, we put up our Christmas tree. (You realize, don't you, that for Russians, December 25th is just Another Working Day: Their Huge, Overly-Commercialized Winter Holiday happens at the New Year. And while January 1st is celebrated here much as we celebrate Christmas in America--with gifts and festively-decked trees and their own version of Santa Claus (called "Grandfather Frost"), Russian Christmas itself--January 7th--seems to slip by with little observation of Christ's birth. In fact, our very first Russian Christmas here, we were shocked out of our pajamas when our landlords and a handful of workmen showed up in the late morning to paint the hallway and install new tiles on our stairs. We tried to explain that we were observing the January 7th holiday, but suddenly none of them spoke English.)
But anyway, today, we put up our Christmas tree. Now, understand that I grew up in the depths of the Adirondack mountains of New York, where my father always marked our Christmas tree (from a primeval roadside forest plot) sometime around late October. In December, we went out, the whole family, armed with a cross-cut saw and the cotton socks my great-grandmother knit us, which always kept my feet numb enough to never really feel cold--and somehow, we hacked that tree down and hauled it home on the roof of the car. (The legality and tax issues of this are still mercifully foggy in my mind.) My Christmas memories of decorating the tree are soft and hazy with low lighting, and Bing Crosby crooning "White Christmas" on the record player, and sugar cookies and punch in the kitchen, and my father gently swearing his way through untangling the strings of lights....
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