I don’t know about you, but конец декабря (the end of December) is always the busiest time for me. It’s all about getting ready for Новый Год (the New Year), мой любимый праздник (my favorite holiday).

At first I wasn’t going to write about празднование Нового Года (celebrating the New Year) since we already covered it on this blog several times. We wrote about some of the новогодние традиции* (New Year customs) associated with this праздник (holiday) as well as some useful Russian phrases for gift-giving and receiving. And last year we explained how to celebrate a truly Russian New Year.

What’s left to talk about then? Quite a few things, as it turns out. For example, we never really concentrated on новогодняя ёлка (the New Year tree). The other day I was asked a question about traditional Russian tree decorations. And since I am going to buy my tree later today, that’s what the post is about.

Growing up, we would go покупать ёлку (buy a fir tree) just a couple of days before the holiday and decorated it either on December 30^th or 31^st. Most of my friends and neighbors did the same thing. It was rather необычно (uncommon) to put up a tree a week or more before the holiday. Personally, I think it kept up ощущение праздника (a sense of celebration) since ёлка не успевала приесться (there was not enough time to get used to the fir tree).

Once the tree was installed in its подставка (stand), first up went электрические гирлянды (string lights). This was also the most frustrating part of the process since all the wires перепутывались (would get tangled up). Besides, всегда хотя бы одну лампочку, да приходилось менять (there was always at least one light bulb that needed to be replaced).

Next we would get our most treasured ёлочные украшения (ornaments) out, including стеклянные шары (glass orbs), usually красные с белым узором (red with a pattern of white); стеклянные шишки (glass pinecones); стеклянные сосульки (glass icicles); фигурки сказочных персонажей из дутого стекла (blown-glass ornaments in the shapes of fairy tale creatures).

As with many other things, our ornaments were much the same as the ones on our friends’ trees or other trees around the country since they were all made on the same фабрика ёлочных украшений «Ёлочка» (“Yolochka”, the Russian ornaments’ factory). The factory, by the way, is still open and is cranking out new ornaments.

After the fancy glass ornaments that families берегли как зеницу ока (saved as the apple of one’s eye) and передавали из поколения в поколение (passed from generation to generation), it was the turn of the simple самодельные игрушки (hand-made ornaments). Various фонарики (lanterns), коробочки (tiny boxes), бумажные цепи (paper chains), and such were made out of картон (cardboard), цветная бумага (colored paper), and фольга (foil). Sometimes we would get a chance to make an ornament out of an egg by making the holes in it, blowing the egg white and yolk out, and then decorating the whole egg shell.

After that it was time to decorate with бусы (strings of beads) and гирлянды (garlands) that weren’t электрические гирлянды (string lights), but made out of стеклянные бусины (glass beads). Then the tree topper, верхушка, would be placed on top of the tree by an adult and kids would take handfuls of дождик and мишура (tinsel) and hang all around the tree. In the end, the tree would be so covered in the shroud of tinsel that it was hard to see its branches.

The final touch was to wrap a white bed sheet around the tree stand and place пластмассовый Дед Мороз (plastic Father Frost) under the tree.

Do you celebrate New Year? Do you decorate a fir tree for it? What is your favorite ornament? Do you make your own ornaments? You can take a picture of it and share with us on our Facebook page.

*Here’s something that I just found in Google Translate – the phrase “новогодние традиции” is translated into Russian as Christmas traditions while “новогоднии традиции” is translated as New Year’s traditions. Interesting…