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Christmas, how to meet Christmas, Christmas table, decorate the house, plot
January 7 is a great religious and family holiday, it is customary to celebrate it in a special way. Even our contemporaries, who have long turned out to be from many traditions, prefer to celebrate Christmas in a special way. The history of the Christmas holidays is actually much longer than the history of Christianity, initially, in pre-Christian times, from the 25th of December to the 6th of January, winter Christmas trees were celebrated, called them Kolyada. These days are confined to the winter solstice, they symbolized the completion of the annual cycle. In the modern Christmas holiday, the motifs of the pagan holiday of the birth of the New Sun and Christian motifs are intertwined - the birth of the Son of God, the holiday itself, in any interpretation, symbolizes the joyful beginning of life, it is filled with positive energy and faith in the victory of light forces.
Content
- How in the old days they celebrated Kolyada video
- Symbols of Christmas and their meaningvideo
- How to decorate your home for Christmas videovideo
- A few ideas that will help to decorate the countryside plot for the New Year and Christmas.
- Customs and Signs Regarding Christmas Dinner
How in the old days they celebrated Kolyada
This issue should be considered necessarily, because most of the actions that are carried out today at the celebration of Christmas were performed during the celebration of Kolyada.
Modern Christmas contains:
- appeasing the spirits of dead ancestors,
- caroling and singing special songs called carols,
- religious prayers
- dressing up in horse, goat, cow costumes,
- fortune telling
- baking pies,
- dIY craftsmanship for Christmas
- obligatory fasting to the first star.
On this holiday, in the old days, in the villages they brought didukh - a wheat sheaf, woven in a special way, decorated with ribbons and shreds, set it on pokut. And today, in memory of the fact that Jesus was born in a stable, it is customary to sprinkle with straw or hay a table before a festive tablecloth spreads on it.
Preparation for the holiday begins in advance, with a thorough cleaning and decoration of the house.
On Christmas Eve, the day before Christmas, it is customary to cook twelve meatless holiday dishes, for example:
- Lenten borsch.
- Fried fish.
- Braised cabbage with mushrooms.
- Sauerkraut salad with pickles and onions, seasoned with sunflower oil.
- Pies with mushrooms.
- Salad of herring and boiled beets.
- Boiled potatoes seasoned with mushrooms fried in vegetable oil.
- Dumplings with cabbage, potatoes, mushrooms.
- Vegetarian cabbage rolls with rice and fried carrots.
- Spicy seasoning with garlic and pepper based on tomato paste.
- Kutia.
- Uzvar.
The main dishes are sochivo (kutya) and uzvar. Whole wheat grains should be used for cooking kutia, rice should not be cooked for this festive dish - from it is prepared the eve - a treat that is served at the funeral feast. On the festive table on Christmas Eve (Holy evening), it is absolutely inappropriate.
Modern recipes of kutya suggest the addition of:
- poppy, honey, nuts,
- raisins, candied fruit, dried apricots,
- wheat remains the same ingredient.
The second obligatory dish on the festive table is the Uzvar, a drink for the preparation of which use dried apples and pears.
On Christmas Eve, fasting was strictly observed, it ended with the advent of the first star symbolizing Bethlehem, which informed of the birth of Jesus. It is advisable to gather at the table with the whole family, in festive clothes. The beginning of the meal should be a prayer, after it you can start eating, first of all - to kutya, then - to the rest of the dishes.
The festive table for Christmas was set in view of the fact that the fasting had already ended, usually it was attended by a baked goose with apples, fried chicken, pickles and tomatoes, salads, smoked meat, stuffed cabbage, jellied meat, home-made sausages, porridge with lamb meat. Be sure to put on the table a large dish with pies. Toasts with butter cream decorated with glaze were also prepared.
Under the table put any available iron item on the farm. Everyone who sat at the table put their feet on him. It was believed that the strength and strength of iron on this day was transferred to a person who touches him with his feet, and throughout the next year such a person will be protected from all sorts of diseases.
There was a conversation at the table, everyone congratulated each other on the holiday, then gave gifts, of this moment, of course, most of all the children were waiting for.
Symbols of Christmas and their meaning
Like any holiday, Christmas has its own symbols. The main one is the Star of Bethlehem, it was with its appearance that the magi learned about the birth of a baby.
It is believed that the prototype of the Star of Bethlehem could be Halley's comet moving in the night sky. A group of carols, which were made of cardboard and richly decorated, were also carried with them, who on holiday wandered from house to house and informed the owners of the good news about the birth of Jesus.
The second equally important symbol of the holiday is the tree. It is installed in the house and decorated with toys. However, this beautiful custom appeared relatively recently, several centuries ago and was borrowed from the inhabitants of Germany.
A very important point of the Christmas holidays are light and fire.
Candles lit in houses symbolize the victory of bright energies over the forces of evil and darkness. In pre-Christian times, people also worshiped fire, burned candles and bonfires in the hope of expelling the forces of cold and darkness from their villages.
On Christmas Eve and on Christmas should light a stove or fireplace, in a city apartment - be sure to light candles. Put one of them on the windowsill - it is believed that good spirits will notice her and begin to protect this house from all kinds of misfortunes.
We are all happy to attach a Christmas wreath, a symbol of wealth, on the door of the house.
This symbol is borrowed from the parishioners of the Lutheran church. Such a decoration for Christmas can be made with your own hands. To decorate the wreath, you should use candles and Christmas toys. It is interesting that the traditional wreath was decorated with four candles, lit them alternately, for four weeks, on Sundays.
And on the last Sunday before the holiday it was required to light all the candles together so that the location of the wreath was well lit.
During the celebration of Kolyada, the pagans behaved very noisily, it was believed that in this way it was possible to expel evil spirits from the villages, which gained special strength in the winter, when the Sun showed itself for a short time and could not warm the earth.
Since Christian times, the tradition has come to Christian Christmas to sing loudly at a holiday, to scream, to ring bells. It is also customary to ring church bells.
With the raspberry bells, people welcome the birth of Jesus.
Over the past one and a half years, an integral symbol of the holiday is the Christmas card.
This good tradition allows millions of people to congratulate their relatives and friends living in different parts of the world. The first Christmas card was painted by the Englishman Horsley.
Fortune telling was a very interesting moment of the holiday.
It was believed that during the time of Christmas time the skies were open and this is the best time when you can learn in detail your future fate.
How to decorate your home for Christmas
Decorating a house for a holiday can be done in different ways. Although Christmas Eve is already decorated with a New Year’s house, it’s necessary to add elements typical of Christmas holidays: a wreath and candles. You can buy a wreath in finished form, you can do it yourself - a creative approach to business will allow you to get a unique decoration that matches your taste.
It is advisable to choose candles for Christmas thicker, so that they burn for a long time. Earlier on this holiday candles were made from natural wax, such that they would burn for 24 hours. The burning of candles symbolizes the light brought into this world by Jesus. Of course, lighted candles should be installed in such a way as to exclude the possibility of a fire.
Since the Christmas holidays symbolize the light, you can add garlands to the interior, you can decorate with flashing lights not only a city apartment. If Christmas is celebrated in a country house, you can garland the house outside or trees in the yard - your house will immediately turn into a sparkling palace.
Themed Christmas decoration is also a nativity scene.
You can create a den image using a wide variety of materials that can be found in the house, dolls can be bought ready-made.
There are many master classes on the Internet for creating such Christmas pictures.
Crafts for Christmas can be very diverse, for example, in a fairly spacious room, you can build a fireplace from ordinary cardboard boxes. Of course, you won’t be able to make a real fire in it, but the blinking multi-colored garlands will give it a pretty attractive look. You can learn about how to make a fireplace from the following video:
If you celebrate Christmas in the city and the cumbersome decoration options do not allow the area of \u200b\u200bthe apartment to decorate, you can decorate it by hanging circles on the walls and windows from wire decorated with Christmas tree rain, in the middle of such circles you can hang beautiful toys on shiny threads.
Created from a wire wrapped in tinsel and other geometric figures, stars or outlines of animals look quite original.
A few ideas that will help to decorate the countryside plot for the New Year and Christmas.
If you meet the winter holidays planned at the cottage or in a country house, then prepare for such an important event should be in advance. Crafts for Christmas, quite spectacular in appearance and very simple in execution, will help to create a festive atmosphere. Even those who try their hand at different types of needlework can master the manufacturing technology of some of them. Children can also be involved in the production of plain garden decorations.
Multicolored ice lanterns will look original and attractive in a snowy garden. To create them, you need to freeze ice with fillers in containers of different shapes and sizes. Fillers can serve as bright winter berries, for example mountain ash or viburnum, cones, autumn leaves, spruce branches, etc. As a luminous element, you can use LED elements.
Emphasize the outlines of the house, gates and gates, the bizarre shapes of trees can be placed on them luminous cords. One glance at the house decorated in such a way is enough to understand that the hospitable owners are eagerly awaiting guests dear to their heart.
If the weather is warm outside and it is impossible to make ice lamps, then you can use the gift theme to create original luminous decorations. Having assembled wooden or cardboard frames, electric garlands can be fixed on their walls, then the frame walls can be tightened with paper for wrapping gifts, tied with a bright ribbon with a bow.
Mandatory attribute of the holiday is the spruce, even if it does not grow in the garden, you can use the grown seedlings purchased in the nursery in a container. Even such a small Christmas tree can be beautifully and originally decorated. By spring, such a Christmas tree can be planted in the garden or in the yard.
Brightness will be added to the winter monochromeness. Bright Christmas decorations, toys and garlands fixed on the door of the house should also be decorated with a wreath - a symbol of prosperity and prosperity in the house. The composition of the wreath can also be thought out and performed independently. The windows and porch of the house can be decorated with green garlands woven from fir branches. As decorations, you can use bright bows, cones, lamps.
As a decor for the yard, you can use snowmen stuck together and decorated with children. Creating a family of funny snowmen is a fascinating task and the children will take care of them with special pleasure.
You should stock up materials for decorating snowmen:
- carrot - for spouts
- hats or colored pails - for decorating heads,
- sashes, mittens and scarves.
If there is no snow, then you can create a snowman from a synthetic winterizer, for the frame you need to bend oval shapes from a rigid wire. You can insert a garland inside the snowman, its light in the evening will give the snowman a fabulous and mysterious look.
Colorful snow-white garden landscape located along the paths will be decorated with colorful ice balls.
To tint water before freezing, fluorescent gouache of various shades is added to it. Colored water is frozen in balls - when the water completely freezes the ball is removed, a translucent color ice ball remains. If you make a hole inside the ball - for this you need to pour a little boiling water from the kettle at one point - you will get a very beautiful garden lamp.
Customs and Signs Regarding Christmas Dinner
Of course, no one calls for exact observance of all the signs and customs that have come to us through many centuries, however, from the fact that we listen to folk wisdom, there will be no harm to our house and people living in it.
So, Christmas signs say that:
- getting up from the table or going outside until dinner is over should not be - any evil can get into the house,
- traveling people should return to the house before midnight - otherwise a very hectic life will be waiting for them all next year,
- sitting in the corners of the festive table is not recommended, in particular for unmarried girls - next year they will not find a mate,
- at the end of dinner, you should leave kutia and a few more dishes on the table - in the old days they believed that the spirits of deceased relatives also come to try festive dishes,
- also do not forget about pets - for them, you should also prepare a delicious treat - otherwise the neighbors could read the owner of the house for greed,
- everyone who comes to carols in the house should be generously presented with food and sweets.
Whether you will adhere to the old rules or not is up to you, but it is imperative to maintain a good attitude towards everyone around you - family relationships for the whole next year depend on how you behave on Christmas.
Drinking a lot of alcohol and cursing on this holiday is not recommended, the forces of Evil and Good on holy days dominate the planet on an equal footing, which soul will be closer to them - they will rule it all year. There should be peace in the house for Christmas, and abundance on the Christmas table, then the coming New Year will be rich and happy.
