Holiday Plans!

It is the holiday time! This year we get to have two Christmases. Ukrainians celebrate Christmas on January 6-7th, as it is Eastern Orthodox Church. So, Rob and I will celebrate western Christmas on the 24-25th with our American friends in Lviv. We will make some food together and hang out. As you can see from the video, Rob and I already bought a Christmas tree and decorated it (took us 5 min. to decorate it, see the video to see why). Then, on December 31st we will catch a morning train to Uzhgorod to visit my family for one week. We will spend New Year’s and Ukrainian Christmas with my family. While there, we will visit my extended family and some friends, as well as make several trips to the Russian banya (sauna) – see pictures from September posts of our trip there, it was fun.

We already had a Christmas party at our university last week, organized by our American friend (see some pics in the video). During the presentation, scripture was read in five languages, and then students did different presentation. Rob’s class sang “Jingle Bell Rock.” He taught them how to sing it! It was a fun time with some desserts afterwards. And today (December 19th) is St. Nicholas day in Ukraine. Over the night, St. Nicholas brought presents for kids, and adults also exchanged gifts.
Today, to continue with the holiday season, we went to see the Nutcracker ballet today at the Opera House in Lviv.