The article (Celebrate! Holidays In The U.S.A. Christmas Day tells us about how Americans celebrate Christmas holidays and what it means to them. Christmas in America is a very important holiday, especially for children who usually await the 25 of
December with great excitement. Kids hang sock all around the house and Santa Claus comes down the chimney in the night and leaves presents and candy in them. On December 24, Christmas Eve, people have Christmas dinner which includes turkey potatoes, pie and lots of deserts.
Christmas, while remaining one of the main Christian holidays in Russia, is celebrated on the 7th of January by the Russian Orthodox calendar, but not on the 25th of December. Traditionally, these the girls were telling fortunes, sang mysterious songs, children listened to Christmas fairy tales, frightening stories. Fortune-telling is is still very popular among young ladies as well as in old times both in cities and in the country. The most popular kind of fortune-telling involves the future husband appearing in the mirror. But still, nowadays the 7th of January is more of a religious holiday than a national one and isn’t usually even celebrated by non religious people.
There is much more similarity between Catholic Christmas and New Year in Russia. Russians celebrate New Year twice: on the 1st of January, according to the New style calendar, and on the 14th of January, Old style. But the main fun is on the 31st of December. Usually Russians give each other presents on New Years and celebrate all night long, having champagne, the “Olivie” salad and the TV on with all the different New Year shows along with many singers and TV stars. There is also “Ded Moroz”, the Russian Santa Claus. But he, unlike Santa, does not use the chimney and does’t usually visit people’s homes in the night. He comes – along with his granddaughter Snegurochka – to special parties called “Iolka” (Christmas tree) which can be held in schools, kinder gardens or just organize in some other places like theatres, so people cam just buy tickets and take their children to see Ded Moroz.
All in all we can say, that Christmas is celebrated very differently in Russia and America. Both of the countries have their long going traditions, but, nevertheless, both countries have lots of magical fun and get lots of presents during the winter holidays, no matter how they are called and when exactly they are celebrated.