Christmas in Transcarpathia

Many of us grew up with families and when we came down the stairs on Christmas morning, Santa Claus had left for us toys and treats. We took for granted those special traditions with our families like going to midnight mass and riding around in the car looking at Christmas lights.

Holiday spices wafted through the house as mom made wassail or baked cookies. The smell of pine was enough to make you overlook the sap you had to scrub out of the carpet after Christmas. And, making Christmas cards or decorations using the previous year's cards were a big part of some of our Christmas rituals.

Finding resources for such celebrating are becoming more and more difficult. Most funders are looking for "sustainable" projects which change the overall situation in which children live, play and grow. And, while these are extremely important, so too are the everyday things like Christmas concerts and visits by Grandfather Frost and Snigura.

I would say that my family traditions, perhaps more than anything else, contributed to my understanding of belief, tradition, heritage, and ideals. These traditions taught me generosity and what it means to give and to receive. I learned the importance of sharing with others and of appreciating all that I have. And, when it comes down to it, these are the things that "sustain" me in my life. They are the lifeblood of who I am and all that I try to do in the world.

In 2010, I decided to introduce the group of 3rd and 4th graders at the Perechyn Boarding School to a little of the traditions we celebrate around the holidays in the United States. These included not only things like baking Christmas cookies and writing cards of thank you to those people who have been special to you all year round, but our wonderful tolerance of the difference of people and the ways in which they celebrate their traditions - from Christmas and Chanakah to Ramadan and Kwanzaa.

Volunteers from boarding towns shared their holiday traditions - from midnight mass to viewing Christmas lights from the car window, to caroling on the back of a hay wagon, and eating Chinese food on Christmas Day, to lighting the Minorah throughout the eight days of Chanakah. It is our hope that by seeing how we celebrate the differences in each other, so too will these young people learn to celebrate the differences and similarities among them. After all, isn't this the very definition of sustainability?