Z Rizdvom! 2015

After Christmas and New Year’s, our celebration continues—year after year we get to feel quite Ukrainian on January 6th, Ukrainian Christmas Eve.

This year I wasn’t sure if I was up for spending two days cooking and planning my big dinner as January 6th fell on Tuesday. I knew the kids would be very disappointed if we didn’t do anything (although we don’t technically exchanged gifts for Ukrainian Christmas). We had our friends, the Grovers, over for dinner a couple of weeks prior and Mallory convinced me that we should still do it (and she’d help me with cooking).  After a bit of thinking, I decided that this year, like never before we MUST celebrate everything Ukrainian!

The menu was easy to plan since it doesn’t change much-haha.I prepared food on Sunday and Monday, mostly because I had a ton of everyday stuff to do that Tuesday during the day. The boys had swimming till 4:45, so we ran home to finish the cooking. Alex changed into his Ukrainian shirt and helped me make kanapkas.

My dad’s recipe is a favorite around here-squished garlic, shredded cheese and mayo-with fresh Polish bread.

Katya had the water boiling by the time we were back so I was able to cook my frozen vareniki quickly.

By 5:30 we were ready to feast. Our friends, the Shockleys, also joined us and brought venigred. Oh, and I found all the ingredients for Kutia! It was yummy…at least to me-haha.

We took some traditional Ukrainian family pictures. Here we tried to imitate some of those old-fashioned pictures with no one smiling. Mark took the no-smiling thing quite seriously.

My sweetie, Robert. Year after year he still lets me convince him to wear a Ukrainian outfit. By the way, I am wearing this traditional Ukrainian shawl that my grandma gave me this last year. It belonged to her mom, so my great grandma, Marina. I think it’s beautiful.

Back to the food…Mallory made some super tasty cabbage rolls (holubtsi). That was great help for me because cabbage rolls take a bit of planning and a long time to make.

Mallory also made this delicious Slovak sweet bread. It was a huge hit!

Here is a close up of our desserts. Napoleon tart with 12 layers is, in my opinion, to die for…but it’s definitely a treat that should be eaten no more than twice a year.

I need to remind myself each year that these sort of traditions help define us as a family. The kids love them and even though sometimes they are a bit of work they are worth it.