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How Cossacks Celebrated Christmas

Holy Christmas is a wonderful and in a way a fairy holiday widely celebrated by Cossacks.

We can learn about the traditions of Christmas day of the beginning XX century on the Upper Don from recollections of the oldest resident of Stanitsa Vyoshenskaya Tatiyana Mikhailovna Safronova who turned 100 on December, 30, 2010, and Alexey Petrovich Gribanov, a local-lore expert (now deceased).

Christmas preparations set out long before the holiday. On Christmas Eve in villages young people gathered to sing carols, made a “Christmas Star”. It was made of a round sieve, the rays were made of thin willow sticks stuck in around the sieve and covered with coloured paper to form a star. In the centre a candle was put, which light gave a wonderful radiance in the winter dark evening.

In old times groups of men Cossacks, children went about the village streets dropping in each Cossack house singing carols in their strong beautiful voices and reciting Christmas rhymes. Then the visitors congratulated the hosts, who, in their turn, welcomed them and treated with wine, pies, pancakes, jellied meat, sauerkraut, other tasty things.

Grown-ups and children began their visiting the houses from midnight waking up the hosts knocking on the door. Sometimes the carol-singers were presented with sweets or coins. Rich people collected new coins for Christmas to give the visitors. Sometimes the children called in the same houses twice or thrice to get more coins, and the hosts gave them holiday presents again and again.

Nowadays young people are rather interested in old Cossack traditions and customs and at Christmas night they visit their neighbours, relatives, friends to sing carol, recite merry rhymes, congratulate on the great holiday and get their holiday booty.

I. Korenyughina