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Orthodox Nativity

January 8, 2020 /

Since we celebrate Nativity, Christ’s birth (Christmas) on January 7th, I wanted to share a peek into our celebration. Since we follow the old church calendar, we are on the same calendar as the Orthodox church in Russia and in the Republic of Georgia. We actually spoke to my father in law on the 25th who is in the Republic of Georgia right now and he was saying the kids were just returning from school. Their school break lasts about a month and starts this week I think. Other Orthodox do follow the new calendar and celebrate on the 25th such as my parents’ church.

On a practical side I do like being on the old calendar since it gives us a step away from the materialism that can be associated with Christmas. We are still opening our gifts on the 7th but are making sure that we put Christ in the first place.

Vespers

We start celebrating Jesus’ birth with vespers. This is a short 45 min service. The following hymn is the Nativity troparion which will be sung for the next weeks to come. It summarizes the Nativity!

“Thy nativity, O Christ our God,
has shown to the world the light of wisdom;
for by it, those who worshipped the stars
were taught by a star to adore Thee
the Sun of Righteousness,
and to know Thee, the Orient from on high.
O Lord, glory to Thee.”

Sleep by the tree

This year we started a new tradition with the kids, sleeping by the tree. We all opened our stocking gifts before church. My mom had made us all stockings growing up. No homemade stockings for our boys but the boys all have snowmen themed ones. I usually put small toys, candy and fun things in them. It is always a little harder to get inspired for my husband’s stocking though!

Divine Liturgy

We then head to church for liturgy, our Eucharistic service. We dress our Sunday best and celebrate that Christ is born.

Dinner and gifts

This year, we had smoked ham (a gift from my husband’s employer), green bean casserole (a first for me to make), macaroni and cheese (from a little bbq place in town). We started with European meats and cheese with crackers and ended with cheesecake. I am all about an easy meal after coming back from church.

The boys were a little spoiled with their gifts this year but God has been merciful and has blessed us this year. We still limited gifts to 4-5 per child (instead of 4), books, one piece of clothing, a game or toy, and an outdoor toy (archery sets for 2 and my 5 year old received a bike to replace his). The tiger is a collective gift for all the boys: I just couldn’t pass up the 50% off tag! We went into Target for a bike and came out with 2 giant animals (the other is a dragon for my son’s birthday at the end of the month).

Hope you enjoyed this peek into our Christmas.

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

A bientôt!

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18 Comments

    • mimifce

      January 8, 2020 at 2:34 pm

      My husband ‘s grandmother was Russian and while my side of the family’s background is Canadian and French, we do go to a Russian Orthodox Church.

  • jodie filogomo

    January 8, 2020 at 12:01 pm

    It’s so nice to see how your holiday is different Mireille. And that tiger is precious.
    XOXO
    Jodie

  • Claudia

    January 9, 2020 at 6:37 am

    Very interesting post, I love to know new traditions and customs around the world. Today I learned one more thing I didn’t know, thanks for showing. I also want to take this opportunity and thank you for your visit and your comment on my blog.I really appreciated it!
    xoxo
    Claudia (Claudias Welt)

  • Mica

    January 9, 2020 at 5:23 pm

    So interesting to read more about your traditions! We just follow the regular calendar but we also tried to buy less for the boys this year. A work in progress for me I think, as I definitely went overboard with the books – i always like buying them books and suggest them as gifts to other people so they ended up with more books than we have space for!

    Hope that you are having a great week 🙂

    • mimifce

      January 9, 2020 at 7:08 pm

      I think I had a little too much in their stocking this year so I think I will try to think more before getting them stuff for those. I was tired by the time they all opened their presents: we take turns and 4 gifts times 4 kids takes a while!

    • mimifce

      January 9, 2020 at 7:13 pm

      Thanks! I really is just Christmas but some of the Orthodox churches follow the old calendar. So the greek church and others celebrate on the 25th while the russian orthodox church celebrates on the 7th. In the US with the different immigrants you have a variety of orthodox churches but they are all Orthodox and share the same faith, same services but the differences would be in the language and maybe some minor ethnic traditions as what one groups puts in their Easter/Pascha basket.