A well-known holiday - Old New Year

All Russian favorite holiday winter - the Old New Year is still not understood by many foreigners. What is the difference between it and the traditional New Year, which comes on a mysterious night, falling from December 31 to January 1? At first glance, it only seems that all the difference lies in the dates, in fact the Old New Year is an independent holiday that prolongs our sense of winter happiness. It is a more peaceful and domestic holiday, there is no such fuss that always precedes the traditional New Year's Eve.

How the Old New Year appeared

In ancient times, the traditional New Year in our state was celebrated in the spring - March 22. It is a holiday of the vernal equinox. After the adoption of Christianity, the calendar has changed a little and now the new year has come on the first of September. Still later, at the direction of Emperor Peter the Great, the New Year was postponed to January 1 (old style), and therefore it turned out that according to the new style, it falls on January 14. So there were two different dates and two different celebrations of the New Year.

Although the Old New Year is not a calendar week-end, Russians are very fond of celebrating it. More than 60% of the population is happy to prepare on this day. Workers, students, entrepreneurs, housewives, mostly under the age of forty - all these people love this home holiday and are even ready to take time off from work to spend this magical evening at home with their families.

Unusual and cheerful in this holiday of congratulations. The Old New Year includes dances, songs and poems - you can choose one or the other for your own taste, and you can prepare a number of congratulatory numbers, for example, to sing a song, and after some time to perform a pre-prepared dance.

What people do not do at all on their favorite winter holiday, the Old New Year: they make guesses at porridge, and go to visit each other with gifts and congratulations, have fun koljaduyut, they make comic dumplings with surprises, play various old games, generous games and Sowing. The Old New Year is a magical holiday, after all and just a priori of his house at the TV would not be very interesting.

The rite of sowing. There is an opinion that this old rite came to us from ancient times. Our distant ancestors, as we already know, met the New Year first in the spring, and for this reason the rite of sowing is associated with the hopes of a good harvest. Usually, the children went and sowed, and the most generous of those gifted was the one who first came into the house.

At night, from January 13 to January 14, an old-fashioned Vasyl evening is celebrated. What is generous? These are old ritual songs that glorify and congratulate the family or individual. Generosity is always accompanied by a compulsory tour of all houses with wishes of health and happiness to the people in the new year. In difference from caroling, you can give one and the company, and more often women and girls are engaged in it. Be sure to sprinkle a house with corn - this is predicted by a rich year. On the Old New Year at midnight begin to sing festive generosity. On January 13, according to the tradition, girls go cheering, and on the 14th, necessarily the first guests in any house should be the seasons - the young guys. This promises a good harvest to the owners in the new year. For such congratulations, the owners of the house are treated sweet by tradition and give small coins.

Do not open the door generators can not, because they carry the house the best wishes, joy and a wonderful mood for the next year. Therefore, you need to stock up on candy and small change! And even if your house namusoryat - will be rich in the new year!

According to the belief once a year, girls can find out their fiancees. This period is called Christmas. A variety of divinations can be learned from their grandmothers and mothers, or dig in the literature.