Aspic, salads, caviar, champagne – in our families they invariably prepare for this main meal of the year, they are waiting for it. The holiday gathers different generations at the same table, so that we, forgetting the disagreements for a while, can taste the pleasures of being together.
On the eve of the New Year celebrations, we are used to spending a lot of effort, time and money to prepare them properly. Everything should be beautiful and generous! “It smells of meat pies, fatty cabbage soup with pork, goose and piglet with porridge … Hot, light and satisfying,” the émigré writer Ivan Shmelev described the Christmas feast of his pre-revolutionary childhood.
Since then, more than a century has passed, the Christian holiday has given way in scope to the secular one on December 31, but otherwise little has changed. Gathering a hearty meal, it is as if we are making some kind of annual sacrifice in the name of the pleasure of loved ones, in order to show them our affection and receive confirmation of warm feelings from them.
Already from the first days of December, the New Year’s race for abundance begins, gaining speed every day. “The closer the holiday, the greater the hype,” complains 42-year-old Christina. “Crowds of people in stores, tons of food, decorations, gifts… It’s as if they are telling us that there won’t be a holiday if we don’t buy all this, don’t stock up, don’t eat more and more…”
The day everyone is waiting for
And yet, for most of us, people of various tastes and generations, the tradition remains unchanged – even if everyone has the opportunity to show originality and imagination, for example, to celebrate the New Year in the forest, on the streets of a city or in a tropical resort, often the traditional celebration wins.
“This is my favorite holiday! 11-year-old Lena smiles. – At home it smells like a Christmas tree, a lot of gifts and you can stay up! And my mother always buys some special tangerines. Actually, I don’t really like tangerines, but the smell of these winter ones seems to me a little magical, it’s the smell of holidays and New Year’s miracles!
Preparing real olivier – finely and neatly sliced - is like meditation and requires focus on the process.
“Last time we decided: we won’t mess with Olivier – we’re tired! – says 30-year-old Alexandra. And they didn’t cook it. And then one of the guests nevertheless brought a bowl of salad … which everyone swept away without a trace and with great pleasure! It seems that without Olivier it’s not quite the New Year … “
Decorate the table with our culinary classics or, for example, oysters and foie gras (also, by the way, traditional dishes for Europeans) – today we have a choice. “And yet, in the New Year, we will rather be pleased with the unchanged “basic” salad,” says existential psychotherapist Svetlana Krivtsova. Because holidays measure our life, serve as a constant for it. We perceive them as a support in our unstable world.
In addition, the preparation of real Olivier – finely and neatly sliced, with many ingredients and proportions – is painstaking work that requires focus on the process. At this moment, we forget about work and family troubles, immerse ourselves in ourselves – and so we find a state of peace and harmony.
Finally, the process of its preparation creates a festive and creative mood: we cut potatoes and cucumbers, chop eggs and carrots, gradually thinking about what other treats we will set the table with, whether our relatives will like our gifts and who would be entrusted with cooking the turkey … “
Return to Paradise Lost
“There is a strong emotional side to the inviolability of the New Year’s feast: this is a moment of nostalgia, colored by childhood memories,” says psychoanalyst Lola Komarova. “Almost everyone has these bright memories – garlands and Christmas decorations, gifts and mother’s Napoleon cake … For us adults, it’s like returning to a lost paradise.”
“I’m not too inspired by the prospect of overeating with numerous snacks, hot dishes and desserts,” admits 58-year-old Alexander. “The only thing that really pleases me is the elm pie that my mother baked. Now few people know what it is, and my mother was from the Volga … Today I cook it myself with my daughter – I want my children and grandchildren to have their own “anchors” of memory. Including our family holiday meals.”
A meal that has become a ritual is able to temporarily connect those who are rarely seen on weekdays. “I have been living separately for a long time, and my parents have been separated for many years,” says 32-year-old Svetlana. “But every year my mother waits for my father and me for lunch on January 1st. The menu is the same: salad, aspic, roast chicken with potatoes – heavy and fatty food, I eat completely differently. But I understand that my mother tried, cooked, probably called my father to find out if he would bring sprats … Actually, for the three of us, this is the only reason to see each other, to get together.
holiday puzzle
Catholic and Orthodox Christmas, December 31 and the old New Year – for believers and non-believers, these weeks at the junction of two calendars today turn into an almost continuous string of festive meetings and events. And for some, this becomes a real test.
“I absolutely must have lunch at my mother’s at least once, visit my father and still find time to visit my husband’s parents,” 28-year-old Natalya lists. “But I also want to see my friends!” You have to run so as not to forget or offend anyone!
“And I feel like a kind of Christmas goose, which is fattened for slaughter,” complains 23-year-old Anna. “Mom cooks tons of food every time and makes sure we eat it all. A real torture for the stomach and psyche! Over the past holidays, I gained four kilograms and told my parents in my heart that I would not come to them again. They were terribly upset and promised not to put pressure on me anymore. Let’s see if Mom keeps her word!”
Many of us manage to find our own way of maintaining family ties… close or not. “For the New Year and Orthodox Christmas, our “ex” with children and new spouses come to my wife and I from England and Germany, my sister arrives with her little son,” says 50-year-old Yuri. “We see each other only once a year, in a large country house that was built by my grandfather.”
“But I like to celebrate New Year’s midnight at home with my parents and younger brother,” says 23-year-old Andrey. – Raise glasses of champagne, congratulate everyone and unwrap gifts, and after an hour or two move to friends or a club. By the way, almost all my friends do this.
“It so happened that neither I nor my wife have close ties with relatives,” admits 36-year-old Alexei. “So for the holidays, the two of us always try to go somewhere far away. Although I think that in the future, when we have children, everything will change: it will become more difficult to travel, and my wife and I will certainly want to celebrate the New Year with them. In this, our desires absolutely coincide.”
Olga Weinstein, culturologist: “Today, the New Year is becoming more and more intimate, a family holiday compared to Soviet times. Then two or three dozen friends and acquaintances often participated in the feast, and after midnight the celebration from the apartments splashed onto the streets. True, today the table bursting with food is gradually leaving the tradition, because it does not play a compensatory role: in Soviet times, scarce products were “thrown away” in stores, kits were sold, and pre-New Year orders were given in state institutions. Mistresses bought and saved food for the New Year in advance. But the abundance of the New Year’s table will not disappear at all, since it has a symbolic character. This is a kind of ritual sacrifice at the turn of the times, when the “sacrificer” tries to propitiate some higher powers (at least for the coming year) and counts on their assistance, making a wish under the chimes.”