How Christmas Eve will be in Ukrainian

The traditional holiday season is coming: preparations for Christmas will begin earlier this year. With the transition of the OCU and UGCC to the New Julian calendar, the dates of all church holidays were shifted by 13 days. Christmas will now be celebrated not on January 7, but on December 25.

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The evening before Christmas was sometimes called the Russian holiday – Sochelnik. What is a very good-sounding Ukrainian word that can be used to replace linguistic tracing – read in the OBOZ.UA material.

There is no word “Christmas Eve” in the Ukrainian language. Do not spoil the purity of the language with tracing paper and Russianisms, especially since we have a very beautiful word for the evening before Christmas.

Traditionally, families gathered around the festive table on Christmas Eve. The long fast was over – the housewives put 12 fasting dishes on the table and necessarily kutyu. And all this happened on “Christmas Eve” – ​​that is how Ukrainians historically called the last evening before Christmas.

For example:

It snowed on Christmas Eve – everywhere you look; Maria was cooking kutya and kept looking out the window to see if her grandchildren were leaving.

This Christmas Eve will be special: Ivan was supposed to come from the front for the family dinner.

This word is also found in the classics of literature:

“Christmas Eve is the evening before Christmas. No matter what you say, these holidays, this Christmas Eve… these Christmas carols and carols are important to me” (Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi).

Earlier, OBOZ.UA told when the Christmas fast begins in 2023, what can be eaten and what is the annual Advent.

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