Russians traditionally rest for a long time. Long New Year holidays begin with a New Year's Eve. After the New Year holidays, Orthodox Christmas begins in a week. To fill holidays with meaning and to feel the transition from noisy New Year celebrations to the chamber and home Christmas holidays, you need to know how you can decorate a room for Christmas with your own hands to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of this holiday after the New Year's feast. This will make it possible to diversify the weekend, fill it with meaning and significance, make it possible to get acquainted with the ritual side of this important and bright Orthodox holiday.
Content
How to decorate a house in the Russian Empire for Orthodox Christmas
Orthodox Christmas in Russia, as in other Orthodox countries, is celebrated from January 6 to 7. Until 1917, Russian citizens first celebrated the Christmas holidays, dressing up Christmas trees, and then New Year, which according to the new calendar style introduced in 1918, fell on January 13th. After that, in Russia, Christmas began to be celebrated after the New Year holidays.
Before the October Revolution, Orthodox Christmas was the main winter holiday. In the USSR, after the separation of the church from the state, the Christmas tradition ceases to be the main winter holiday, giving way to the Soviet New Year. It again begins to spread widely only after the collapse of the USSR. Today, January 7th is considered an official day off.
Read more: DIY Christmas home decorating ideas 2019
After loud and noisy New Year's holidays, it will be possible to mark the end of a long winter weekend - a meeting of Orthodox Christmas. If you know how to decorate a room for Christmas, then you can update a slightly boring New Year's decor by adding a fresh Christmas note to it in the style of Russian Orthodoxy.
Features of Russian traditions of the celebration of Orthodox Christmas
On Christmas Eve, the Orthodox ended a forty-day fast. It was customary to meet Christmas itself with a plentiful table, on which there must be at least 12 different dishes. The holiday began with all-night service in the church.
Before that, the house was thoroughly cleaned and put a Christmas tree - the main decoration of any house. The firmer and taller the Christmas tree, the more solid and richer the owners of the house were. The Christmas tree was decorated secretly from children, so that the decorated forest beauty became the main gift for the children. Instead of modern Christmas tree decorations, edible decorations in the form of apples, gingerbread, sweets and beads were used.
In the second half of the 19th century, wealthy citizens began to use expensive Christmas toys. The population with medium and low income made Christmas decorations with their own hands.
It was from there that a memorable tradition came to everyone to make Christmas toys from a wide variety of materials at hand during winter evenings:
- paper;
- cotton wool;
- beads and buttons;
- a tree;
- pieces of fabric.
Today, such jewelry is very much appreciated and sold as handicraft in New Year's markets. Handicraft lovers can restore this tradition by making it family fun on Christmas Eve.Children with great pleasure will make crafts in the evenings of angels, horses and winter houses with their parents.
In the whole Christian world, including tsarist Russia, this holiday is traditionally considered to be chamber and family. It is customary to give gifts to each other on this day and to celebrate a holiday in the family circle at a Christmas table by a decorated Christmas tree.
Read more: Design a small hallway: modern interior ideas
To create an appropriate atmosphere in your home, you need to know how to decorate a room for Orthodox Christmas in the Russian style with your own hands using your own jewelry.
How to decorate a house for Orthodox Christmas?
After the Orthodox tradition of celebrating Christmas for a while was lost sight of the bulk of the population of Soviet Russia, the national traditions of celebrating Christmas were lost.
Today, it is often possible to see on the eve of January 7 in the house, German wreaths of conifers with candles that were used to welcome Christmas advents in the Lutheran church.
Such a multicultural approach makes the ritual side of the holiday senseless and devalues not only Orthodox, but also Protestant traditions of celebrating Christmas.
Christmas tree - the main decoration of the house for Christmas
The main decoration of the house on Christmas in Russia was the spruce. Instead of ordinary glass toys, you can hang “edible” jewelry on it:
- apples
- tangerines;
- candy;
- do-it-yourself angels;
- gingerbread cookies that you can bake with your own hands and cut out from the dough with special forms;
- cardboard pipes;
- bells.
It was customary to decorate the Christmas tree with candles. Today they are replaced with LED garlands. The space on the wall around the tree can be decorated with stars carved from silver foil.
In other rooms, you can also create a Christmas atmosphere with bouquets of Christmas tree branches decorated with cones wrapped in silver or gold foil.
Read more: See and freeze: 20 unusual roofs with great views
When decorating a room, you need to use the colors of the Christmas theme. The main one should be white, which will harmoniously combine with different shades and style designs of the house.
As color accents, you can use red, gold, silver, blue. All these colors will look beautiful against the background of green needles.
Flowers in a Christmas interior
In the rooms you can put beautiful compositions of white lilies, chrysanthemums and fir branches, which will be decorated with red or golden Christmas balls.
If there are icons in the house, they can also be decorated with live or paper white flowers and pine branches. Such decorations will make the interior more light, festive and lively. Flowers will fill the house with aroma and freshness, which will be perfectly combined with the resinous smell of needles.
If you have the money, you can make flower garlands, since such jewelry will require a decent amount. The wire is wrapped with moss or a special material that will retain moisture. After that, flower heads with short legs are tightly stuck onto the prepared base.
So that the buds do not fall out, they are fixed with twine. After that, water for flowers is added to the moss or a special sponge and a garland is hung above the door, window opening or along the stair railing.
Using candles
Not everyone after the New Year is ready to sit for a long time over the manufacture of Christmas decorations. However, the peculiarity of the sequence of winter holidays in Russia allows you to update the festive interior before the Christmas feast without unnecessary efforts. Anyone can cope with this task, since you can simply decorate a room for Christmas with candles, placing them in different places.
To install candles, a window sill, table, fireplace are suitable.Long white candles, decorated with ribbons and compositions from angels, effectively emphasize the elegance of the festive decoration, harmoniously fit into the New Year's decor and make it more elegant and solemn.
DIY making angels
Angels are one of the main symbols of Orthodox Christmas, which have traditionally been used to decorate Christmas cards, Christmas trees and children's books. This figure can be made with your own hands. It will not take a lot of time to make several angels.
To work, you need to take:
- white and color felt 40x18 and 30x13cm;
- cotton wool;
- base rollers left from toilet paper or paper towels;
- copper wire;
- body acrylic, black and white;
- thin braid from organza;
- hemp;
- satin thin multi-colored ribbon;
- small stars and hearts
- tracing paper;
- colour pencils;
- thin cardboard;
- a simple pencil;
- scissors;
- tailor's meter;
- nippers;
- glue gun;
- thin wire;
- darn needle;
- flat brush number 12;
- hair brush number 2.
Here you can download the base pattern for the face of an angel:
The photo shows step-by-step instructions for performing all stages of the manufacture of angels.
Work Stages:
Make small balls of cotton wool for the heads of angels and paint with flesh-colored acrylic paint. Set aside to dry. On a dried surface, paint with a thin brush on the pattern of the eyes, nose and mouth. Wet the stylus of a red pencil to shade the cheeks. Using a thin brush on the eyes and cheeks, represent the reflections of the flame with white paint.
Angels will be of different sizes, so a large piece of fleece is taken for large ones, and a smaller one for small ones. The rollers are trimmed, if necessary, to the size of the fleece strips. One side of the fleece is glued to the roller along the edge with a glue gun. When it dries, the material should wrap the roller and glue the fleece along the edge to the base.
Read more: Preparing the house for the New Year: 11 tips
Cut a circle equal in diameter to the roller from the fleece and stick it to one of the ends of the workpiece.
From the pattern, make a template for a star collar and wings. Put the wing pattern on a fleece of a cream or other light shade and cut out the part by stencil. The collar can be cut from any multi-colored fleece. To the collar, choose a suitable color ribbon from organza or silk, tie a bow and stick to the bottom of the head. Then stick the head with a bow on the collar, and then connect it to the body with glue.
Shade the wings along the edge with a yellow colored pencil and then stick them on the back. Angels dresses slightly bend around the edge and decorate with glued fleece hearts and stars, which can be cut on a special form-flared from a children's set. If it is not, then you can do it arbitrarily.
Make a small bundle out of hemp and twist it with a thin wire, and then stick the angel on top of the head. These will be his curls. From a thick copper wire, make a halo and insert it into the head of an angel. First you need to make a hole with a needle and coat it with glue.
From ready-made angels, you can create a festive installation with candles on the windowsill or on the dresser. They can be hung on a Christmas tree or put in the middle of the festive table to create a thematic table setting.
Before you make your home for Christmas, you need to carry out a general cleaning after the New Year holidays. After that, a fabulous atmosphere of Christmas miracles will settle in the house. After the meeting of Christmas in Russia, Christmas time began. At this time, it was customary to guess, go to visit relatives and friends, caroling until Baptism.
During the celebration of Christmas, it was customary to give gifts to relatives and friends, treat them to a variety of dishes that were served on the table.Perhaps not every housewife will be able to cook 12 dishes for Christmas, but many people can create a special atmosphere in the house with its thematic decoration.
It is not necessary to attend church, but if you have a great desire, you can visit the Christmas service in the nearest church. In any case, preparing yourself and your home for an Orthodox Christmas meeting will help you tune in to a calm and peaceful wave, and will give a long and pleasant New Year vacation a pleasant and warm chord.
Alas, no comments yet. Be the first!