Day 348 – The Old New Year

Remember how the Julian calendar affected the Orthodox Christmas timing? Well, it did the same thing with the New Year's, and the Orthodox New Year falls on January 14^th, making January 13^th the Old New Year's Eve. It has become customary in the Slavic tradition to celebrate both New Years. Of course, Slavic governments couldn't care less about the Julian calendar, and only January 1^st is a public holiday and a day off, but all Russians homes host a mini celebration with the traditional New Year's table: Olivier salad, herring under a furcoat, a ton of cold cuts, red caviar, fish in aspic, and of course, vodka.

This holiday is both beautiful and sad. Its beauty is a very cozy, homey, warm celebration – none of this real New Year's noisy rush. And its sadness is the conclusion of the winter holiday cycle – New Year, Christmas, Old New Year. If during the 2 weeks between January 1^st and January 13^th there's still some magic in the air, some indescribable hopeful agitation (hopeful of what? doesn't really matter, just hopeful!), on January 14^th the new year has really begun, the magic is over, and you should start the work on your resolutions to make sure you have something good to discuss at the next year's celebration.