As New Year’s Eve approaches, a real sales boom has engulfed toy stores and souvenir shops. In the short period left before the holiday shoppers have to buy a green beauty, decorations for it, and gifts for their relatives and friends. According to the Chinese calendar, next year will be the Year of the Mouse (Rat), so toy rodents painted gold and silver are the most popular purchases at the moment.
Other popular Christmas tree decorations include sugar-coated fruit, poinsettias, flower buds, and hearts, conventional glass decorations made in the unconventional shapes of pine cones, flowers, and peanuts. As usual, there are long lineups in stores for hand-made New Year’s Eve souvenirs, primarily miniature snowmen and candlesticks. According to shopping experts, the novelty of the season is a Grandfather Frost that can be hung on a Christmas tree.
“These small toys that look like American Santa Clauses can also be hung from doors or windows,” explained Anna Zaitseva, a consultant for TM Grinpol. “The next most popular items are evergreen Christmas wreaths that are used in the West for decorating front doors, and Christmas socks for presents. Christmas tree garlands, imitation snow, and Christmas ornaments that play music still have a high approval rating. The popularity of a decoration called “rain” has somewhat slumped, and is seen less frequently on Christmas trees and clothing, owing to the influence of Western European traditions.
Among glass decorations Ukrainian most often choose huge red balls with gilding. According to Zaitseva, large decorations are becoming more popular as elements of women’s clothing and Christmas tree decorations. If you don’t want to decorate your tree with large stars larger than 20 cm in diameter, you can buy small bells or straw angels, which were the main Ukrainian Christmas decoration hundreds of years ago.
“There are several symbols in straw bells,” explained Maryna Balii, an expert in straw weaving, “First of all, they mean good news coming to your home. The ribbon symbolizes long life, and its red color stands for love. Three pyramidal beads inside the bell embody a man, woman, and child. Such bells were usually presented to a family with wishes for happiness and prosperity. Besides these bells, Ukrainian Christmas trees were traditionally decorated with figures of angels adorned with blue ribbons and stars, the symbols of the Star of Bethlehem, which appeared in the sky at the moment of Jesus Christ’s birth.”
No less popular with our ancestors was a spider woven out of straw. Balii explained that this decoration was kept in the house all year long because people believed that it consumed negative energy. At the end of the year it was traditionally burned to get rid of all the negativism that had accumulated during the year. Today these straw spiders are making their way into many people’s homes. After all, every new thing is based on something ancient.
