By: Ann O’Sullivan
Posted In: * Deck the Halls *
Photo credit: Erica Johnson
New York City is all lit up for the holidays.
On Christmas morning, Jen Russo and her two older brothers will wake up, jump out of their beds and sit eagerly around the glowing balsam tree in their pajamas for their parents to awake so they can look for the present that Santa has left for them.
This is a common scene for any family with children. However, Russo is 20 and her brothers are 25 and 21. This has been her holiday tradition for years, surviving moves from St. Louis to Connecticut and most recently to New York. It’s also survived siblings leaving for and returning after finishing college and will probably continue for years to come. Many Salve students will be celebrating the upcoming holiday season. However, the ways in which they plan to observe the season are all very different. The season is one that is filled with long lived traditions. Sara Laniewski, also 20, has kept a family tradition from her childhood. Every Christmas, her younger siblings “jump into my bed to wake me up and then we sit there and snuggle for a while.” Laniewski went on to say that her sister and brother are now 13 and 15 years old. “We’ve been doing it for years!” she said. Christmas family time does not always happen in the home. Melissa Casazza, a 20-year-old New Jersey native, has made the traffic-filled trip into New York City in the morning with her family. Melissa, along with her mom and brother, spend the morning wearing worn felt antler headbands and watching the Macy’s parade. To warm up after the parade, the three of them try to search out the least-crowded restaurant to get brunch. This also serves as nourishment for their next venture, to swim through the super-crowded Rockefeller Center ice skating rink. The rest of their day is spent checking out the Christmas decorations throughout the city. Their day generally ends with them eating dinner, exhausted in a restaurant in New York before they load into their car to drive home and do the very last thing on their Christmas list, open presents. Casazza talked of her friends telling stories of their Christmases being very anti-climactic. “We get to do the really fun stuff last,” Casazza said. Larysa Androshchuk, a Salve student from the Ukraine, will be celebrating this Christmas in a way that is drastically different from years past. She will have the typical American Christmas with presents under the Christmas tree instead of the Ukrainian holiday season, which is very different. In the Ukraine, the season begins on Dec. 18 with the Feast of St. Nicholas where everyone receives presents in socks that they put by their beds. Children are supposed to believe that St. Nicholas has left these presents for them. The actual Christmas holiday starts for Ukrainians on Jan. 7 and is called Sviata Vecheria (Holy Supper). This is their Christmas Eve. All day on Jan. 7, a meal is cooked using no meat and no fat except for oil if it is needed. This 12-dish meal is not eaten until the first star is seen in the sky. After the dinner is finished, they attend Mass and go singing house to house. Jan. 8 and 9 are also considered part of the Christmas celebration; they are celebrated in a much-less-grand fashion than Sviata Vecheria. People spend these days going to Mass and Vertep, Christmas puppet shows. “We really enjoy Christmas,” Androshchuk said. “I’m going to miss it.” The Christmas season in the Ukraine ends on Jan.19, which is celebrated in exactly the same manner that Christmas Eve is. The one thread that is constant through each Christmas tradition is the anticipation that builds in the weeks approaching the holiday season. It seems that no matter the age or location of the people celebrating the holiday, they are all rejoicing in the spirit.
