Dark Christmas Days

Some of you may remember reading my post back in May about the 'white nights', which is one of St. Petersburg's claim to fame. (Not that they are the only city who has them, but they make the biggest deal about them and how beautiful the city is then.) The white nights are when there are only a few hours of darkness because we are so far north that the sun barely slips below the horizon before it is up again. Well, of course, there has to be a flip side of this phenomenon and we are smack dab in the middle of it. I'd call it 'Dark Days' but I had to laugh when I read a travel brochure trying to drum up winter tourist business call it 'White Days.' They said it was the splendor of the snowy winter days and the white skys. Well, there's no 'splendor', in the city at least, of snow but white days is appropriate in that the sky for the few daylight hours is sort of white, actually I'd call it grey. Sunrise is now about 10:00 and sunset is at 4:00, so when we leave home to walk to our Institute building every day at 3:30, it is dusk. And we have seen absolutely no sunshine, because the sun never gets very high in the sky and is obscured by clouds anyway.

But the city is all decked out in Christmas finery. There are huge Christmas trees every few blocks decorated with large decorations and lights. These are 'fake' trees but a native told us yesterday that until a few years ago they used to use live trees. And the main streets have large Christmas decorations strung across the street. Nevsky Prospect, the grandest street, is a sight to behold. And the store windows are all sporting trees and decorations.

We think Christmas in Russia will be an interesting thing to observe since they don't actually celebrate 'Christmas.' This was, after all, an atheist country just a few short years ago. But they celebrate the new year in grand fashion, which means, evidently, mostly a lot of drinking. From January 1st through 15th is the new year holiday, with the 7th being what they call Christmas, although it is a much lesser holiday than the 1st. They tell us that people are about celebrated out by that time. Missionaries have to stay in their apartments on the 1st and the 7th because there is so much carousing and drinking going on. But the church members are learning how to celebrate Christmas and are very influenced by the American missionaries and former American mission presidents, so the branches are preparing for parties or programs. The members here are really blessed by having our hymn book now translated into Russian. They haven't had it for too many years. So they do have our Christmas carols to sing, but there is no Chrismas music on the radio. I have asked several people if the Russian people have Christmas music, or did they sing carols before they were in the church, and the answer seems to be 'no.' Because Lou is teaching a Book of Mormon class in English to those few who can speak English, we ordered some English hymn books. Oh, it is good to sing in English once in a while! Can't tell you how much I miss singing the hymns in words I understand. At our last Family Home Evening we sang some Christmas carols in both languages at the same time. The kids seemed to like that.

We actually have a Christmas tree in our apartment. It brings some cheer to the room. Our landlady, a fiftyish, blond, stylish woman, asked if we would like her to bring us one. She owns also a small storage room adjoining our apartment and she used to live here. So she has kept her tree there. On the agreed-upon day she showed up and got out the tree and decorations. We had that tree put together and the decorations and lights on it and tinsel thrown up on the pictures on the wall, etc. and she was out of here within an hour. Never did my Christmas decorating so easily. And it's not half bad.

Hope you are all enjoying the season and are very thankful to live in American, no matter what is going on there.