The little I know about Christmass...
I was born in the former Soviet Union and in my childhood there was no religion and no god, there was only communism and communist holidays, but the only holiday that wasn't pure communist was the New Years eve. On that day, in every house was a decorated beautiful evergreen tree with presents underneath, there was the guy in the red suit that said hohoho in Russian , it was the happiest holiday ever. About the tree it self nobody really cared what's the origin of this tradition or most likely if anybody did know its origin he would not say it out loud... if you'd say : Christian German tradition from the 16 th century you would probably be exiled, you know Siberia... so thats the for the Communists Russian Celebrations.
My parents moved to Israel when I was 9, and just few months before that I discovered that actually I'm a jew, but I shouldn't tell it to nobody, dangerous and stuff , so after arriving to Israel I had to discover more painful truth, that there are no more new year's eve celebration in January, because it is actually in september, by the Jewish calendar, and no more decorated trees but gefilte fish, and if you wanna celebrate something in the winter, you should celebrate Hanukkah which is much happier: it lasts for 8 days, lots of candles, lights, songs , you still receive lots of presents and eat a lots of sweets...but the family tradition with the big meal and waiting for the midnight was still going on, without a tree but with some Champaign, vodka and lots of russian truditional food, it was ok.
Now i dont know how much do you know about Israel but it is much smaller than you think in the bigging of the 90ies there was about 6 milion ppl and after the collapse of Ussr , about 1 milion jews arrived to israel from there. So the melting pot process began then and now after more than 20 years with the Israelis traveling a lot abroad and seeing the world, there are lots of parties and celebrations of Sylvester all over the country, you can find places to buy the trees and decorations and taking the day of on the 1 of January is very very common.
What about Christmes you may ask? the city of Jerusalem lights the road from the old city where Christ thumb is, to Beith Lehem the birth place of Jesus, with Christmas decorations, lots of tourists all over the city, but no special sales in the shops. There are lots of celebrations in the Christians arias but as you may guess, unfortenetly I've never had a chance to participate in those.
Now I have to admit my own ignorance : my hole life i was sure that the new years eve is the most important holiday, in that i can blame the communists, its totally their fault for confusing the people..and than I can blame the Israeli education system for not teaching us the Christians Holidays..so only after arriving to Poland I've learned that Christmas is the biggest holiday for the Christian world! and originally the decorated tree which i remembered from my childhood as part of new years celebrations is actually part of that holiday and not Sylvester...also I discovered that on my birthday the 6 of January there is also a holiday, which is really nice ...and that if you count the days between the 25 of december to the 1 of January you get also 8 days of holidays with lots of lights, decorations, presents and sweets.... But the most important thing that I learned is that even though the holidays and the names, the dates and the traditions changes from place to place and from time to time it is all combines to one element : the families wanting to be together , celebrate with their close ones and make each other happy.
So i wanna wish you all the happiest holidays with your love ones. A year full of light, joy and fulfillment of all your dreams and wishes.
Yana
