Friday, January 7, 2011

Russian Christmas

January 7th, in case you didn't look at today's date.

Christmas Day according to the Julian calendar. In our hybrid household, we celebrated the day as we have since the beginning.

Many Eastern Orthodox countries have switched entirely to the Gregorian calendar and celebrate religious holidays at the same time as Western Christians, but a few, like the Russian Orthodox Church, hold fast to old traditions (or maybe habits) and continue to mark the feasts according to the Julian calendar, 13 days later.

I'm not going to try and explain who is right and who is wrong, and what the mathematical underpinnings of either calendar are -- for one thing, anyone who knows me also knows that I have issues with numbers. It's good enough that I remember there's a +13 conversion from Gregorian to Julian. Besides, it's easy to find out more on the subject.

Now Easter is another story altogether, and another one I'm not going to talk about now.

Anyway, we put up our Christmas tree around Thanksgiving, like most people, but we keep it at least through January 7th, usually through the 10th, because according to Russian tradition, all major (religious) holidays are celebrated 3 days.

С Рождеством Христовым!

More Story: Graphic Novel Updates

Most current pages here.

Or start from the beginning.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Check it Out

Remember the book I reviewed before the holidays?

This one.

Well, it's out. You can get it at Amazon.



If you have any doubts, check out my review. Or head out to Delilah Devlin's home page and see what she's heard other readers say about it.