Celebrating New Year

The introduction

Hello everyone, I hope, that you are all doing just fine!

In this article I want to tell you about my New Year in Georgia and I want to tell you about it, because it was a very different New Year from the other ones.

First of all, I want to tell you, that the New Year is especially celebrated in Georgia, rather than Christmas and that's because of the former Soviet Union country, I guess. However, Christmas is becoming more and more important holiday to celebrate, but it's not like they celebrate it in catholic countries. We don't usually give presents to each other on Christmas and we do that on New Year and we have those big concerts and things like that and it's really a party on the New Year's Eve.And, of course, it's on the 31-st of December when the 1-st of January is dawning.

Well, everyone is especially preparing for the New Year and there are pretty much some traditions about the New Year's preparation, which people still keep mostly. First of all, buying some presents for the children (mainly) is an essential part of the New Year's preparation process. And then you have to have an amazing feast planned at home, or if you are not going to be at home when the clock strikes the 12, you should still have prepared some dishes for the next day or the day after that for the guests to come and visit you.

There are whole traditions about the dishes and decorating the fir-trees, however, nowadays many people just decorate their fir-trees whenever they want to or whenever they have time for that. I remember, that we usually decorated it on Christmas Eve (the catholic one), which is when the 24-th of December finishes. That was the time when usually the Christmas and New Year spirits started roaming around and we were very excited the New Year to be closer to us.  To tell you the truth, I remember, that there used to be snow on that day back in my childhood and now there's not even a snowflake on the New Year's Eve., and that's really sad, of course, because then there' s not that feeling of Christmas and New Year, when there's no snow outside and when there's no white cover on the Earth. It's always so sunny on New Year's day, that we don't really feel like the New Year.

Anyways, the New Year preparation starts with the searching of those presents and it's not an easy one, we all know. However, people still manage to do all those things and if they can not really make their children's dreams come true, they still try it. There are lots of places, where you can buy so many different things, that you can't really imagine, so that I won't be telling you about that.

The second thing is the "Supra", the feast and the dishes and that is one of the most important things during the New Year, because everyone thinks, that if they don't have some dishes prepared, then they will fail in the New Year preparation, so that they prepare so many dishes, that they get really tired and in the end, they don't want any New Year or Christmas or celebration, etc. They just want to rest and relax. It's a pretty strange thing and it's really a surprising one. And many people prepare the dishes on the 31-st of Decemberand, well, of course, you can't really do everything in some hours and that is a great stress for the women in the family, because traditionally, women prepare the dishes and they do mostly all the stuff, I guess. And it's like if you don't get all tired and stressed out and exhausted, you don't feel the New Year coming and you don't get to celebrate it in a right way.

My New Year

Anyways, let me tell you about my New Year in Georgia. First of all, I must tell you, that my parents are doctors, so that we were kind of used to that thing, when either of them had a nightshift that day and we would meet the New Year at home without either of our parents.Of course, we didn't like that, however, we couldn't change it and we couldn't do anything about it. Then, the time went and me and my brother went to the medical university, too, and now we have those nightshifts, too, so tha it was pretty possible, that we would have a nightshift on the New Year.

Besides all the things, our little sister went to study in the university in the USA and she was not in Georgia on the New Year or Christmas, so that it was a change, too. and there were also  some other changes in our lives, which were pretty strange.

Well, as the traditions are, we started thinking about the presents and the dishes, that we would prepare. However, we didn't really want to have too many dishes this year and I decided to just have that Tolma, which everyone loves and which is an essential dish on the feasts in Georgia, and we would have Khachapuri, which is a  national dish of Georgia, and we would have a beef salad,which most of us love in our family and , also, it had been a long time since we last prepared that salad. We would also have some cheese and the sweets and oranges and pineapple and other things, too.

The thing was, that we were really separated ,because, as I have already mentioned, our sister was in the USA and then, my parents had nightshifts on the New Year's Eve and me and my brother had nitshifts on the 1-st of January. And it was not possible to exchange the nightshifts with anyone else, because nobody wanted to be in the hospital on the 1-st of January, when it's a presents and Mekvle day and visiting others and etc. Well, to tell you the truth, I didn't really expect to have a nightshift that day, however, that happened and we couldn't do anything about it. It would be my first time being at the hospital during the New Year and I didn't really like that idea, if you want to know the truth.

In addition to all of that, the weather was not going to change and it was pretty sunny during those days and it was not going to snow on the New Year's eve either, so that the feeling of New Year was not around at all. And I had to choose between being at home all alone or celebrating the New Year with my uncle's family, who just live a couple of buildings away. As I had to be at the hospital early in the morning the other day, it was obvious, that I couldnt' sleep late on the New Year's day, however, it was a good idea to celebrate the New Year with them and then come home soon and get some sleep , so that I wouldn't be sleepy during my shift.

Then the plans changed a little bit and they decided to visit my grandmother in Sagarejo and while it was a great idea, I still didn't want to sleep late at that day, however , it was New Year an it was alright to do something  like that. So that late at night until the 12 o'clock, we packed and drove to Sagarejo, so that we would surprise my grandmother and aunt and cousin, who were not expecting us to be there at that time. Seeing us they were really happy and it was worth driving all the way there, if you want to know the truth.

There are always many fireworks during the New Year and it's an amazing thing watching all those fireworks from  a higher point. For example, there's almost half of the city of Tbilisi seen from my place in Tbilisi and it's a wonderful thing, when they all shoot the fireworks. It's not like that in Sagarejo, of course, however, they have many large fireworks in there, too, so that we watched people throw fireworks on 12 o'clockat midnight and we shoot them , too, and it all was very beautiful, though very noisy, of course, and some people are really afraid of all those things and that's the worst moment during the New Year for them. Of course, many people don't obey the rules and they hold the fireworks in their hands or throw them on towards the windows or things like that and, hence, there are always many people going to the hospital that day, because some of them have lost their fingers or hands or whatever, and it's pretty bad.

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