OUR FIRST RUSSIAN CHRISTMAS

The holiday decoration just outside

our metro station.  There are lots

of blue decorations around the city.

What a wonderful time of year. We can feel the Christmas spirit no matter where we are in the world....even Moscow, Russia.  Our Christmas celebration started out on Christmas Eve when the senior couples here in Moscow got together for dinner and a program at the home of Doctors Smart and Sonda. They are the mission medical doctor and mental health specialist who married just before coming out on their mission. They live in an apartment that was once a mission home so it is pretty spacious. It was large enough to seat all 30 of us.  We were thrilled that the mission president and area president and their wives were able to be with us. After dinner we were privileged to be a part of a program entitled, Bethlehem Express, a take off from Polar Express. The narration was written by one of our senior elders and was very effective. We all sang the songs during the narration that enhanced the telling of the story. We had a nice evening of good food and interesting conversation and lots of Christmas spirit.  

I only made two this year, one for
our selves and one for the Borders

Waiting to be unwrapped.

Christmas day began with our traditional breakfast of cheesy scrambled eggs and a Swedish tea ring. We then opened the three gifts Todd and Kailee had sent us. We had told our children not to send us anything because shipping rates are so expensive. Todd and Kailee said they could not stand to have us over here without a present to unwrap on Christmas morning so they sent us three. Paul received a Yankee desk calendar and I got a beautiful necklace. Then we opened a very special joint gift....an engraved container for consecrated oil to carry on a key ring.  On the container was engraved our names, an outline of Russia with Moscow marked clearly, and the dates and name of our mission.  I cried, of course.  The rest of the day was spent preparing a Christmas dinner for our elders and sisters. Everyone was scheduled to come at 1 pm. 

The other 3 very silly gifts

4 of the 7 elder's gifts

Before dinner, the district held their weekly district meeting during which they watched this year's First Presidency's Christmas Devotional. After the devotional, the sisters gave each of us a silly 37 rubles (one dollar) gift. Never were toy guns, bow and arrows, swords, and toy trucks so loved.  All day long the elders played with them in silly ways.  At that time, we also gave them our gift - a bag of snacks they could eat in place of the sweets they have given up for the holidays.  It contained two Christmas mugs, a bag of mixed nuts, a bag of cocoa mix, and crackers and cheese. They were thrilled and were especially excited to go home and make some hot chocolate.

Elder Crawford, one of our mission AP's

Table all set and ready for dinner

For dinner we decided to serve Hawaiian chicken, fried rice, stir fry vegetables, and Texas Roadhouse type rolls with cinnamon butter.  President and Sister Borders were able to join us so all together we had 13 for dinner.  This meant 8 at the kitchen table and 5 around the coffee table in the living room.  It worked.  Every bit of food was eaten...21 chicken breasts, a large crock pot full of rice and all but 7 of 4 dozen rolls.  We think they liked it.  

The eight in the kitchen.  We insisted that 

President and Sister Borders and ourselves

sit in the kitchen because we were old.

The 5 elders in the living room

Our darling sisters

Later that evening, two of our missionaries skyped home and then after English group our sister missionaries were able to skype their families. Of course, the best part of the day was talking to all our children and grandchildren. We face timed Jon's family as well as Ryan's family and talked on the phone to Andrea's family and Todd and Kailee.  We were grateful that they all had a fantastic Christmas, too.

This is the only picture I could get of a Grandfather Frost

and his Snow maiden.  As soon as I snapped the picture

the maiden stepped in front of the Grandfather Frost. 

 She didn't want a picture taken without us paying for it.

In Russia, everyone is still
celebrating Christmas as their official religious Christmas is January 7. Their Grandfather Frost and his Snow Maiden, though, visit the children on New Year's eve. This was all initiated during the Soviet reign here in Russia. During that time all forms of religious worship were forbidden, including the celebration of Christmas and St. Nicolas. St. Nicolas represented a saint of many miracles and had become the equivalent of Santa Claus in Russia. The Soviets thought St. Nick was too much of a 'god' for the children so they banned him, also, when they abolished all religious worship. Later it was decided that the people needed some sort of joy during the long winter so the government named Grandfather Frost (Ded Moroz) as the giver of gifts and delegated New Year's eve as a time for a him to come visit the children. Hence the continued tradition of a gift giving celebration on that day.  
  

Our ward celebrated their Christmas party on the Saturday after Christmas, the 28th. It was a lovely affair. It started in the kitchen area where they had set up four master classes.  The ward members made dough ornaments, ribbon ornaments, wood cut out ornaments and Christmas cards. After about an hour, we all moved into the multi-purpose area for a very special program. The nativity story was reenacted and then several musical numbers were preformed, one by our own Sister Simmons on the guitar. The last song was O Holy Night, a powerful song in any language.  We have some amazing talent in our ward, including two children, one playing the violin and one playing the recorder.  Refreshments (open faced sandwiches, of course) were served at the end of the afternoon. Everyone had a wonderful time.  We had at least 7 non members in attendance, including three from our English conversation group and our friend Natilia's niece, Tamara.

I had to take a picture of this little 'Santa Baby.'

Tamara, Natalia, Me, Karina, Sister Tolbert and Sister Simmons.

Karina is scheduled to be baptized this month hopefully

before Sister Tolbert goes home at the end of the month.

Our afternoon was topped off with the privilege of listening to a professional pianist playing some songs for us.  She is a friend of the sister's investigator, Karina. Natalia and her niece stayed to listen too.  At one time Natalia recited one of Shakespeare's sonnets in Russian while the pianist played Moonlight Serenade.  Very dramatic. 

Other happenings during the week included a Sunday night fireside for the young singles. It was presented by our good friends, the Pierson's.  Because the fireside was at 7, they decided to come to our ward meetings and then just stay for the fireside. We invited them to come to our home for dinner before the fireside.  We had our traditional Christmas dinner of ham and cheese potatoes.  It was good to be able to repay the many times we have been to dinner at their home. They put on a wonderful fireside.  


Monday we held another family home evening at our home.  This week there were 12 in attendance including 2 promising investigators. Because of the elders and sister commitment not to eat sweets we served popcorn and hot chocolate.  Of course, I did three kinds of popcorn - regular buttered, caramel, and a marshmallow.  This is another tradition that Russians are not familiar with but loved it all.




Tuesday before going to our Christmas eve dinner party, Elders Bass and Davis came over to cut up vegetables for Christmas dinner and to give a lesson to an investigator. Paul sat in on that lesson as I was in the kitchen fixing the rice pilaf we were to take to the dinner.  We love it when the elders and sisters include us in their teaching.


We must share our Thursday with you. Our project was to find a way to get our rent money to our landlord who is in Australia for a couple of months.  It is all made more difficult as there are no checks in Russia so we can't just write out a check and mail it.  We have to draw the cash out of the bank and take it either to her bank and deposit it or wire it via Western Union.  Last month, we deposited it to her bank but to do that we had to have a Russian citizen with a passport come with us and deposit the money. Foreigners cannot deposit money in another person's account.  This month our landlady wanted us to send it by way of Western Union. We looked all over our neighborhood for a bank that offered a Western Union service but were unsuccessful. Paul then looked on line for one a little farther away. We found one across the river so we decided to walk there.  It was a long walk, part through a not so desirable part of town, but we did finally find the right bank. We waited at least 30 minutes before being helped and then it took another 45 minutes to finally get the money sent. The required paper work was unreal. When we finally got the job done, we decided to walk another way and try and find a metro station to ride home. We walked two blocks, found the metro station and realized we were only one station down from where we live.  We could have so easily taken the metro, walked two blocks and found the bank in a quarter of the time.  The funny thing about all this is that we went up to Metropolis mall afterwards and as we were walking from the metro to the mall we found two banks right on the way that offered Western Union services.  We had to laugh....but our sore feet did not.

An interesting statue we found on our walk to the bank

This week, things are a lot more low key as we have a two week break from teaching institute and before starting another pathway semester.  We also facilitated our last English discussion group for a couple of weeks. Our seminary student is in America so our time is pretty free. Because of this, Friday we decided to go for another walk to find an office supply store.  We were in need of some binders and dividers to organize our teaching and pathway materials. We took the metro one stop down (to where we were the day before), walked under the boulevard, and down another street.  We were so excited when we actually found the store for which we were looking. They had everything we needed and much more. From there, we decided to walk home as the weather has warmed up enough so walking is quite enjoyable.  We were glad we did as we discovered all sorts of new things, including another grocery store, not too far from where we live.  We are getting more and more adventurous the longer we live here.  

A different looking church

seen on our walk home.

A very interesting building

LIVING IN RUSSIA SPOTLIGHT

This is one of our ward members and a

Pathway student dressed up like

Grandfather Frost.  He was performing

a service at a local school.

We want to share a few more Christmas customs from Russia. We have learned that Grandfather Frost always carries a magical staff also called a pikestaff to help him make it through the dense, dark forests in the winter time.  He rides in a sleigh (troika) drawn by 3 horses abreast...no reindeer. In that sleigh he often carries an evergreen tree. He always has a floor length fur lined coat, leather boots and a semi rounded fur trimmed hat.  Of course, he has a long white beard.  As of 1998, his official home became a town in Northern Russia (Veliky Ustyua), now called Christmas Town. Children can write letters to him there as the town has a post office designated for the purpose of receiving and answering their letters.  It has become a tourist town with many activities available in which to participate.



I just read something interesting about Christmas trees.  During the Soviet era, Christmas trees were also banned.  People, though, began decorating "New Year Trees" so I guess the trees we have been taking pictures of are New Year trees. It's beginning to sound like the 'holiday trees' in America.  Where are we headed?




Now for a couple of things we have discovered walking around our neighborhood during this holiday time.  We found these decorated latrines. Of course you have to pay to use them. A babushka (an older lady) sits in the end one to collect your 30 rubles (about a dollar). She keeps them clean by swabbing them out occasionally.











We also came across these Santas (or are they Grandfather Frosts?) playing wonderful Christmas music for the people walking by.  It added much to the festive attitude here in our part of Moscow.

THAT'S IT FOR OUR BLOG THIS WEEK.

WE DO HOPE EVERYONE WILL HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR.