Happy Slavic!

What do you get when you cross trick-or-treating with Christmas presents, Christmas caroling and church? Slavic! It's a tradition that originated in the Ukraine with the Russian Orthodox Church. The Russian Orthodox church came here in the 18th century and converted the locals. Many remain true to the traditions instilled by the Russians, even though the practice of Slavic has largely discontinued in Russia.

I'm probably actually bastardizing the history, but it's all based on hearsay and internet research, so it must be 100% reliable. Anyway, last night we got invited to Slavic at Regina's house, one of my co-workers at the court. Slavic is basically a Christmas type of celebration, but it starts January 7th because the Russians use the Julian calendar. (Or whichever one most Americans don't use.) Anyway, that's their Christmas date. Each church has a star. For the week following Jan. 7, the star is taken to people's houses, and lots of folks are there to celebrate. The star is like a pin-wheel with bells on it. The church leader starts spinning the star. When the star spins, everybody sings.

And the singing is impressive, not just your typical singing. Click here to see our 7 second sample video we took with our camera. Incidentally, as it turns out our landlord Ana Hoffman leads the singing. And we think she has an official leadership type of role within the church, but we're not sure. It sure seemed like she was directing the events. Anyway, she's definitely a well-respected community leader.

After the singing, there is a sermon where they explain the meaning of Slavic and what happens after people die. It was interesting to hear "what we learned from the Russians" in the sermon.

And after the sermon, out came the presents. First, bags full of goodies are distributed to everybody present. We took a photo of the goodies. Candies and a can of pop. Then, other gifts are distributed, like t-shirts, socks, and long underwear for men, towels, lotions, soap, pot-holders, and bowls for women, and toys and candy for the rugrats. After that, people feast. The elders eat first of course. Then more singing, and then off to another house to repeat. Each time it takes about 2 hours for the whole process.

Each host provides presents and food for the celebration. Which is a pretty hefty expenditure when you consider the number of people. Of course, we were pretty much the only gussocks. And it was a little awkward to receive presents from people we don't know and don't know (yet) how we'll reciprocate. But everybody is always truly welcome, and after hosting Slavic your house is blessed.

We gave ourselves a smal pat on the back for getting out of our comfort zone for the experience. We showed up at Regina's house at 10, (the Slavic was scheduled for 10-midnight). She invited everybody at work, but we didn't know where she lived so we just drove to her neighborhood and looked for a bunch of cars. When we arrived we noticed a lot of people leaving. It turns out the schedule was changed and Regina's Slavic started at 8, so we just caught the tail end of it. Not to worry, Ana, Regina and Robyn (also from the court house) said, "hurry, eat some moose stew" and told us to follow the crowd to the next Slavic, which was just down the street.

It's an amazing tradition.