What are Winter Holidays like in Ukraine? Why do Ukrainians say Happy New Year and Merry Christmas instead of Merry Christmas and Happy New Year?

Winter Holidays in Ukraine do not start with Christmas, because the

Christmas is celebrated on the 6th and 7th January. Eastern Orthodox

national churches, including those of Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Macedonia,

Montenegro, Serbia and the Greek Patriarchate of Jerusalem mark feasts

using the older Julian Calendar. December 25 on that calendar currently

corresponds to January 7 on the more widely used Gregorian calendar.

The New Year is celebrated mostly in the eve of 31st December and in

Ukraine this holiday is still more popular that the Christmas.

Traditionally families get together to celebrate around the festive dinner

table. There is LOTS of food and also lots of drinks. One of the normal

things to do is to watch many musical shows and popular movies which are

broadcasted that day. Few minutes before the midnight all the channels

broadcast the congratulation speech of President of Ukraine (there is the

same tradition in Russian Federation as well).

People exchange gifts on the New Year's eve and kids usually find their

gifts in the morning of 1st January under the pine tree which is put up in most of the private apartments (if you go to offices in Ukraine around the New Year's time you will also see decorated trees in most of them). The gifts are brought by the Ded Moroz (means Grandpa Frost) and his

grand-daughter Snegurochka:

During the times of Soviet Union religion was oppressed and therefore

celebrating any religious holidays was very risky business. During the

Stalin time this could easily send a person to Siberia for 15 years which

in most of the cases meant capital punishment, because of the conditions

created by the Stalin regime in those work camps. During 70 years Jews,

Muslims or Christians could not celebrate their holidays due to the

communist anti G-d policy. Hence the attention and the importance of

religious winter holidays (Hanukkah and Christmas) was shifted to the New

Year's. As an example, it became a tradition to place a red five corner

star which symbolized the Soviet state on the top of the pine tree:

Most of the cities and towns of Ukraine and Russia have large pine trees

usually placed on the central Squares, the cities are also decorated with

the lights, here are few pictures made in Kharkov around the Winter

Holidays time:

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