ESL Blogs

Hello, everyone! 

Winter has come here and very soon we are going to celebrate the beloved holiday by all people known as New Year. I suppose that every nation has its own way of celebrating and I want to present you our New year style of celebrations. 

At first, I want to mention that we have a real new year with tons of snow and icicles here. If you look at the window, you'll see this: 

It depends on the family traditions but by the 31st of December all Christmas trees in the houses are ready to get the presents from Father Frost. Actually we don't have Santa Claus here. We have Father Frost with his granddaughter known as a Snowgirl (Snegurochka). 

On the 31st of December people start cooking all delicious dishes. The traditional dishes for New Year here include: 

1) different meat dishes

2) a lot of salads 

3) and of course - a lot of tangerines and chocolate candies

4) cold champagne and red caviar 

As for my family, we always cook a salad beloved by all USSR and known as "Olivier' :D 

You will need: 

- salt cucumbers, boiled potatoes and carrots, boiled eggs, ham, mayonnaise. 

Chop everything in cubes, add mayonnaise and feel yourself a part of us :) By the way, I love this salad from my childhood. 

Also we cook a delicious meat that is called here "A french meat" (I don't know why by the way) :) 

You will need: 

- meat (beef or pork), cheese, mayonnaise, onions, tomatoes, salt, pepper, spices. 

Chop the meat, add salt, spices. Then chop all tomatoes and onions and put them on the meat. Add mayonnaise and cheese and put it in the oven for 1-1,5 hours. And enjoy! 

I remember when I was a child I liked to find these presents next to my Christmas tree: 

All these boxes are full of candies (caramel and chocolate) and the weight was around 1-2 kilos :)))) And the biggest happiness for me was to eat all those candies in 2 days))) Because after the New year it wasn't allowed to eat so many candies! 

When it was a soviet time here, sometimes we didn't have money for a lot of candies and my mum bought some of them and we put them on the Christmas tree like this: 

So, what do you need for New Year in my country? 

1) a frosty weather and a lot of snow 

2) a big Christmas tree, Father Frost and presents

3) Salad Olivier, Champagne, red caviar, tangerines and other delicious dishes 

4) New Year movies from USSR times  :)))) (people who speak Russian know them) 

And at midnight you'll be ready to meet 2015 year!) 

Happy holidays! 

Always yours, Honey bee-e-e-e-e :)