Make lemonade. I have to ask, though, if life gives you snow the day after you did your laundry and hung it outside, what do you have? Clothes-cycles!
Now that we’ve had snow, and with our New Years and Christmas quickly approaching, there won’t be a lot of work for the next few days. Here’s a quick run-down of how the holidays work here in Armenia. First and foremost, we are a Christian country, so we celebrate Christmas, except ours is on January 6th. The reason for this (as best I can tell from my Armenian translation) is that the 6th was the original date of Christmas (the day Jesus was baptised) for Orthodox Christians, and during the schism the Catholic church switched it to the 25th (Jesus’ birth), which we celebrate in the West. Other than the date, it sounds largely the same – there are still lights, songs, presents in the night and even Santa Claus! Students get out of school for about the same amount of time, but the period of Nor Tari (New Years) on Jan 1st to Sup Tsnund (Christmas) on Jan 6th is a lot crazier than America.
On New Years Eve, there are similar parties ending with a champaign toast and fireworks at midnight (sound familiar) – but later that night, Santa comes to visit (if he’s not asleep on the couch???) and delivers presents to the children. From New Years Day til Christmas, we visit the neighbors, relatives, friends and “that random guy who bought us coffee once”‘s home, and feast and drink and dance and sing. Needless to say I’m looking forward to it.
I will try and make one more post before Nor Tari but I have a very busy (albeit social) schedule leading up til the first, including an American Christmas party with my English club (complete with caroling and a screening of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”) and a pig slaughtering in preparation for New Years. It should be a great time, but in case I can’t say it beforehand:
Merry Christmas and Happy New Years!
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2 Responses:
December 27th, 2006 at 6:26 pm
Hope you had a Merry Christmas (that’s based on the American date) and enjoy the New Year and Armenian Christmas on the 6th. As far as the laundry goes…..you don’t have to use any starch this time of year over there. We enjoy your blog entries.
Kathy (Sarah’s Mom)
January 4th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Merry Christmas (Sup Tsund) and we hope you had a good Nor Tari. The package was delayed, (schools have red tape, too!) but should be on its way. We all really like your metaphor of the lemondade. Great picture! We hope you’re feeling better.