Skip to content
Call Us Today! 212-533-4646 | MON-FRI 12PM - 4PM (EST)
DONATE
SUBSCRIBE
Search for:
About Us
Publications
FAQ
Annual Report 2023
Annual Report 2022
Annual Report 2021
Initiatives
Advocate
Educate
Cultivate
Care
News
Newsletters
Sign Up For Our Newsletter
Join UNWLA
Become a Member
Volunteer With Us
Donate to UNWLA
Members Portal
Calendar
Shop to Support Ukraine
Search for:
Print
Print Page
Download
Download Page
Download Right Page
Open
1
2-3
4-5
6-7
Christmas in Ukraine By Melanie Milan The room behind him was hushed at'last. The little boy peering out the window felt the vibrant hush envelope him and- knew that all eyes were upon him. Be shifted his weight nervously from* one foot to the other for a time^Tfrfefi suddenly the new importance of his eight years struck him- and a small* * dignity descended upon him, to’ hold his tiny form still and to pucker his dark childish brows. He was the youngest in this family- and • on him fell the solemn duty to announce the ap pearance of the first star. Only after his important announcement could his family begin the Christ mas Eve supper. Well, they weren’t his family, not really. They were his aunt and uncle and his teen-age cousin but they had adopted him almost month ago. They had to sign papers and all, -so he guessed he should call them family. He showed them he knew a lot about family things, too, like to night’s “Holy Supper.” He bet they were surprised when he had( set the table properly and had named everything correctly. The little boy gazed up at the ever-so-slowly darkening^, sky. A mischievous smil£ played around his lips and he contentedly rubbed 'hils nose with a scrawny finger as be remembered the evening’s pre parations. This was his first “Ho ly Supper” but hefcnew all about it, His mother had told him everything at every Christmas time, sincere was old enough to talk. Of course, no one knew about it and he had been forbid den to reveal their secret, for fear of some new punishment. He rested his temple against cold pane, dug his hands deeper into the pockets/ of his new warm trousers, scrunched his neck deeper into the warmness of his heavy sweater and continued to gaze up into the blue dome over head. He wished his mother were here. She always said he would one day eat such a .Christmas Eve supper, just like the “Holy Sup pers” they had in Ukraine. He heard her voice again, as it was that last time, a mere whis per. He had been tired too. He had leaned closer to his mother, drawing new cmirage from her nearness and warmth. She had wrapped them both more snugly in his father’s coat, packed up the straw around them more closely and when the German guard had passed, she had put her lips to his ear and had begun her story: “This is how it was in our house, how it always was in Uk raine and how it will be again. Our house, in that twilight of Christmas Eev e^-'was' warm and ^hiny-lean. My mother and I were done with our work — even with the, cocking anfiv faking for Christmas Day and the day after. Now we ,stood, v^th; njy jounger brother — just such a one as you, my little pigeon' — facing the door. It opened and father enter ed, carryinig- a beautiful sheaf of wheat He bade us ‘Good Evening’ and stood the sheaf of ‘wheat — yesj the ‘dyid,’ the old тац, back of the -table, in the ‘honorary’ corner, under the icon, then laced some basil leaves through the ‘dyid’s’ girdle. “You see, long, long ago, before' Christ came, our ancestors celeb rated kodyada, a time when the evil of cold winter passed and the good of warm weather, with its final awakening of nature, began to. -return — or a& my babusha u$€id, .tou.say — ‘When the sun g,i;ewHw strength and the day in length’. That was a truth, they celebrated, the eternal triumph of good over evil and to remember that, we will give their old god of plenty, the ‘dyid’,. who fed and protected the family, a place of honor. How long ago was that? Why my babusha used to say that "m those times, no one knew-how to bake bread yet, but fed them- selves with cooked .whole wheat . grains. I read in books that that was more than a thousand years ago. Think of it, a thousand years and we still include such a dish of whole wheat grains among the . twelve courses served on Christ mas Eve. We call the dish ‘kutya.’ Mother took such care always to ( cook the grains for our ‘kutya’ 1 fof '-hours to proper softness. It was sweetened with honey, sea soned with the ‘milk’ of crushed poppy seeds and made crunchy4 with nut meats. It is sl dish my , son* that is as rich as our Uk- [ laine. “The door opened again J and my older brother appeared, carry ing two bundles, one of hay, the other straw. He spread a thin lay er of hay on the table and the straw he placed underneath, on the floor. Yes, that is right, my son, they are reminders of Christ’s manger-bed. Mother then put a clove of garlic at each cor ner of the table, to ward off dis ease and evil spirits, you know. In the center, she placed a flat wreath of oats^cut from the last harvest, and adorned with basil leaves and dried flowers. Over this cafne the gleaming white ta ble-cloth. Our two choicest round loaves of bread were placed, one atop the other, in the center of the table, over the wreath. In the top one., a candle was stuck. A ‘topka’ of salt and a pot of honey were placed alongside. The wreath symbolizes the sun, you see, and the bread, salt and honey rep res ent.-th e earthly sul^stanc e of man. “My younger brother, from his station at tbe window, cried. ‘There it is, the first star!’ I re member he lisped. Then, as that і star announced long ago the birth o£; a New Reign of Truth and Hope and Good Will, so then it gave us leave to begin a new year, of peace and hope with our family ‘Holy Supper.’ “We all. j^ ^ our places around the table, fathef by the ‘honor ary’ corner. There wa^Tptace for the souls of our departed one there, as one day you will set a place for me at your table, won;t you, son? Father lighted the can dle and said> ‘Christ is Born.’ We replied, ‘Let us praise Him.’ Fa ther blessed himself, we all fol lowed suit and said The Lord’s Prayer. Then we waited, standing til father took up the dish of ‘ku tya’, offered it to mother and wished her the best of everything in the year to come. Then he of fered a spoonful to my older bro ther, th.en to me, then to the young one. We sat down. Father scooped up a spoonful of ‘kutya’ and flung it at the ceiling. We looked at the result and clapped. Many grains sticking to the ceil- . ing showed us that father’s bees would yield many new swarms that year. “After the ‘kutya’ mother and I . placed the remaining eleven cour ses on the table. Yes, there must be twelve, one in honor of each , of .the Twelve- Apostles., And above all, they must all be fast dishes, on this last day of the 39-day fasting, and must not con tain a bit of meat, nor dairy pro ducts. If that isn’t a feat in it self—preparing twelve such dish es, I don’t know what is. What are the twelve? Well, there’s the ‘uzvar,’ a compote of dried fruit. Babusha always boasted that one year, she had twenty different fruits and berries in her ‘uzvar.’ There’s borsch — the beet soup, then cabbage-and-peas soup, then jellied sturgeon fish. There "Were ‘pirohy’ stuffed with potatoes and cheese, or fried cabbage, and the sweet ones, stuiued with prunes or cherries. There were ‘holubtsi’ — the cabbage rolls, stuffed with buckwheat-groats or with rice. Mushroom dishes, griddle cakes, ‘pampushki’ — the raised dough nuts, and above all else, the ‘ku tya.’ “Dish followed dish at our fam ily’s Christmas Eve supper, and we ate well, so that all year we would not be /hungry, we were told. At supper’s end, my mother laughingly handed me two spoons I blushed, I remember, knowing that mother now considered me at a marriageable age. I laughed, but quickly donned a shawl and went outside. The moon shone on the glittering snow, the air was clear and so cold my breath hung in wreaths of smoke. Th;e snow crunchen}, b^ng^tb ,чгщу boots. I WELCOME, NEW PHILLY і JUNIOR LEAGUE (Continued from I‘age 5) ; also wish to call out to all уоия Ukrainian women everywhere the U. S. — join Soyuz Ukrainoi Whatever your present interes' — social or any other, you cann< afford to miss о-ut on the oppo: tunities Soyuz Ukrainok offers*.; And. to aAl mothers of youn Ukrainian women, I wish to роії out that we have nearly 50 men ber branches and the youth bra і ches number .merely 5. Let’s se what we can do about it. To all you members of Brand 52 I wish to; say ■«— never forg^ that you should always stay firs in your work and thoughts of Sq yuzyuz Ukrainok. Consider it і heritage to keep in the forefron as the finest and first Ukrainian Junior League. Anna Sy wulak, Philadelphia, Psj looked for a moment at the hous’ es of our village, each with theii window lit by the light of tht Family-Supper'-candle. I rattlec the spoons till a dog barked. Joy; fully I rap in ,tucked the spoon* behind the girdle of the-‘dyid.’ M) mother questioned, ‘Was it the Melnik’s dog?’ I nodded, pleased Yes, my boy, your father did send his *starosti’ the matchmakers, to our house soon after. “My family sang carols after supper. So: many of them. They are written down- fin books, my : son. Learn theni and you will learn a thousand years of Ukrain ian history. “We ^jard other voices singing them. They were the village car olers and when we heard their tinkling bell under our window, father put a candle there as sig nal to carol for us.'Their eight- pointed star-lantern moved near er to our window, the singers grouped around and we heard, ‘God Eternal hath, been born,’ They sang well and father invited them in. We gave them a ‘kolya- da’ of money, fruits", nuts and doughnuts, and they left for the next neighbor.^ We sang carol af ter carol, till it was time for Mid night Mass.” His mother’s voice had become still, remembering, or perhaps she had been too exhaisted to continue. The little boy lifted his head. It was true, everything she had told him. Here he was, waiting to be gin just such a “Holy Supper.” Of course, it wasn’t in Ukraine, it was only in a Displaced-Persons Camp, but he guessed it was even better. Here the Americans per mitted you to sing carols, in your own Ukrainian, too. He looked intently at a new light in the sky, then slowly turn-, ed around to his family. The New Light had left twin reflections in his eyes and solettinly he an-^ nounced, “The First Star.” Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
Page load link
Go to Top