Christmas Eve
Description:
It is a kind of fleeting stop amid a violent whirlwind of Christmas preparations and a quiet look at the past year. Something quite similar to what we feel in Russia, when on New Year’s Eve we are going to honor the outgoing year.
This is an evening when even the most stubborn of young children go to bed early, without further persuasion, in order not to miss the upcoming gift distribution from Santa Claus. Adults, after completing day chores or returning from church, sit down at a festively set table: dinner begins on Christmas Eve. Essentially, it's not even dinner, but rather a rather lush late lunch, a kind of dress rehearsal for the next day's Christmas action.
Christmas Eve in Canada is characterized by a diversity of traditions. Some families are already beginning to open Christmas presents, while others are just beginning the ritual of packing and placing them under a colorfully decorated Christmas tree.
In the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador there is a custom on Christmas Eve to sell fish in the church, which the inhabitants catch specifically for this purpose during the entire pre-Christmas week: the money thus raised goes entirely to the needs of the parish. Children in this province are entrusted with a task that delights them - during the church service on Christmas Eve to hold small lit candles inserted into the skin of turnip fruits or turnips from the remnants of the summer harvest specially saved for this purpose. Very symbolic and in a true sense warm wires of the outgoing year.
On the other side of the country, in Vancouver, hundreds of thousands of new lights flash on Christmas Eve in homes and lawns, parks and squares, where brightly lit Christmas trees are flashed by lights with street lights. Visitors to the famous Vancouver aquarium can marvel at a diving Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, and a “Christmas train” runs in Vancouver’s Stanley Park. On the way of the train, trees are decorated with lanterns, figures of snowmen and Santa Claus with deer are placed. Everything sparkles, moves and shimmers. Similar trains travel on Christmas Eve to many cities in Canada. Basically, this entertainment is designed for children, but adults get no less pleasure from participating in the general fun.
In that part of the province of Nova Scotia, which is inhabited by the descendants of the Celtic highlanders, in the villages throughout the night will sound old songs, smoothly passing by the morning of Christmas in the church psalms.