How I Grew Up with Two Christmases - A reflection from Fr. Vladimir

I grew up believing everyone had two Christmases.

The first arrived every year on December 25, measured by the Gregorian calendar and announced long before winter itself. This was the Christmas my family celebrated the way most modern Americans do, the commercial, cultural, cinematic Christmas. It came with Santa Claus in his red suit, reindeer frozen mid-flight across lawn displays, and the predictable holiday movie rotation: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, A Christmas Story, the classics that made us laugh, quote lines, and pass the popcorn. There were sweets, shopping bags, gift lists, and the glorious chaos of presents stacked under the tree. It was tinsel and nostalgia, sugar cookies and wrapping paper, a season more than a feast, an atmosphere more than a mystery. And we loved it. It was fun. It was family. It was American.

But then came the real Christmas.

The second Christmas began on January 7, what many call Julian or Orthodox Christmas, the Church’s December 25 kept according to the older reckoning of time. This was not a season, but a revelation. No jingles, but hymns. No commercial glitter, but holy wonder. This was the Christmas of my Carpathian-mountain ancestors, my Carpatho-Rusyn people, the Christmas of tradition and faith, carried carefully across generations like a lit candle in the wind.

On Christmas Eve, the celebration began the moment the first star appeared in the sky. Only then could the table be set for the Holy Supper of the Twelve Dishes, the sacred family ritual rich with symbolism and memory. Hay was spread across the floor to remind us that Christ was born not in comfort, but in humble poverty. The dinner table itself was prepared like a domestic altar: all four legs tied together with rope, a sign of unity, stability, and unbroken family bonds. Even the structure of the meal preached: we are one, and we remain together.

As we ate, we did so slowly, reverently, gratefully, aware that this was more than dinner. This was inheritance.

After supper, we sang liturgical songs of the Nativity, not carols in the commercial sense, but chants and hymns that carried theology in every verse. The Incarnation was proclaimed in melody, the cave and manger evoked in harmony, the Forerunner and angels honored in song. And when the singing was done, the tree remained, but its purpose had changed. The gifts beneath it were not for us, but for God and neighbor: monetary offerings for the Church from every member of the family, and food donations destined for the local food bank. This, too, made perfect sense to us. For how could we celebrate Christ’s birth and not remember His poor?

Later, bundled in coats and the thrill of midnight expectation, we headed to Church, carrying our offerings with us. The parish was already warm with life when we arrived, family and friends greeting one another, children yawning into scarves, elders embracing in the glow of anticipation. Soon began the midnight Divine Liturgy, the true heart of the feast.

I remember watching the younger children, myself included, battle sleep like a heavy fog. The adults, our beloved dyadkos and titkas (uncles and aunts), became our guardians of wakefulness, gently nudging shoulders, whispering reminders, reviving the weary with affectionate insistence: Stay awake, Christ is being born for you. Some still succumbed to slumber, heads tipping like winter birds. No matter. We were there. God received even our exhaustion as prayer.

After the liturgy’s joyful conclusion, incense still clinging to our clothes like blessing, we headed home where Tato (Dad) fired up the grill. Meat sizzling in the cold night air, fed to us in generous portions, “to fill our bellies,” he would joke, “and make us fall asleep faster.” There was wisdom even in that humor: the feast embraces the body too, not just the soul.

Christmas morning smelled like bacon, eggs, blessing, and smoke-tinged memories. The house was filled with Orthodox hymns, celebrating the birth of Christ not with frenzy, but with calm and holy gladness. Breakfast began with a Nativity blessing, the table again an icon of unity, and only after eating did we deliver the food donations gathered beneath the tree to the local food bank. Then came visits with extended family, more singing, more feasting, more joy.

Two Christmases. One soul.

Looking back now, I see clearly what my childhood heart already knew: the first Christmas was celebration, but the second was communion. The first was warmth, but the second was light. The first made us smile, but the second taught us why we exist at all, to worship the Incarnate God who became small to make us great in Him.

It was a gift to grow up straddling two calendars, two cultures, two expressions of joy. But one was passing, and one eternal. One prepared the house, and one prepared the heart.

And so, remembering it all, I say again with undiminished wonder:
Christ is Born! Glorify Him!