Let me start out by saying that I have never really been a big fan of New Years. Crazy, I know. It's just a holiday that I have never really liked or see the big importance too. So naturally the Lord sends me to work in a country where New Years is the biggest holiday that they celebrate and is considered to be the majority of the peoples favorite holiday. Yes, New Years trumps Christmas here, in fact Christmas isn't really celebrated. Which I find very depressing. I am looking forward to being able to celebrate the birth of Christ twice and share about that with the people here.
This year I celebrated New Years with some people from church. The second I left my apartment I heard what would be the constant sound of fireworks that would go on through out the night. It is customary to have a big meal on New Years Eve and eat a specific type of Russian potato salad. We passed the time afterwards with games and a time of prayer. All while catching glimpses of the fireworks being set off all throughout the city. New Years isn't celebrated until 2 am here, as we celebrate the New Year on Moscow time and they are two hours behind us. So a little before 2 we made our way down to the city center to the ice city. The whole city seemed to be gathered. We watched an amazing fireworks display and different performers were performing through out the night. Children enjoyed the ice slides and games and everywhere you looked someone was setting off some sort of fire work or shooting off what seemed to be a flare guns. The whole area smelt of black powder and cigarette smoke.
For someone who isn't a big fan of New Years, this was a really great celebration/festival. Happy New Year!!
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