How Georgians Celebrate the New Year and Christmas

New Year`s Eve is a long-awaited holiday and significant all over the world. However, unlike the West where the big day is Christmas, Georgian chief celebrations focus on New Year`s Day and its following Bedoba, the day ofluck. What you do on this day, Bedoba, January 2nd, will determine how you will fare for the rest of the year.

If you are celebrating your holidays at a Georgian friend`s house, the first thing that might strike you as strange is the nut wood twig with long fluffy shavings decorating the most dominant spot in the hourse,  perhaps alongside the more famililar fir. The twig is called a chichiaki. And while it does not permeate the entire room with the nice fresh pine aroma that fir does, it certainly serves as an interesting decorative feature and, for the Georgians, serves as a symbol of life and hope. Achichilaki is usually decorated with an assortment of fruits, berries, and flowers as offerings to heaven for a bountiful harvest. Chichilakis are not a year-round Christmas symbol, however, as people ceremoniously burn them on the day before the Georgian Orthodox Epiphany on January 19, believing that the smoke takes away all the misfortunes of the year...