All inhabitants of the earth and, of course, children, look forward to Christmas and New Year – a magical time when each of us so wants to believe in a miracle. The Russian Center in Nuremberg has also begun to prepare for these holidays. Despite the fact that this year’s celebrations in Germany are held under severe restrictions. Despite all the difficulties, the team center saved New Year’s holidays for children.
The courtyard of the Russian Center, like no corner of the city of Nuremberg, sparkles with New Year decorations and decorations: in the center there is a 5-meter beautiful Christmas tree, active parents helped to mount and decorate it, colorful glowing garlands are hung everywhere, there are huge inflatable New Year gates and heroes of winter – Ded Frost and Snowman. The whole atmosphere is filled with anticipation of a New Year’s fairy tale. Holidays are not canceled. A big Christmas festival has been announced and has even started. It will give all children attending courses, circles and educational projects (over a thousand) all the possible joys and feelings of their favorite holidays. The festival program includes more than 30 entertaining, creative and kind actions and events.
On these days before Christmas, we have already begun to carry out various kind actions. In one of them, we thought about lonely and elderly people living in nursing homes. During the lessons of kindness, the children made and signed postcards, painted pictures for them. These gifts and Christmas cards with very good wishes will be sent to nursing homes. We also remembered about our smaller brothers, who live in the forest and animal shelters. Dozens of boxes with healthy food were collected for them. And to feed the inhabitants of the forest last weekend, a whole rescue trooper was sent to the forest park adjacent to the Russian Center. Children with their parents hung delicious New Year’s garlands of pieces of apples, carrots, pumpkin, cabbage, mushrooms on the trees and bushes. And the birds received new feeders made by caring children’s hands and filled with special food for birds.
And the children also wrote letters to Santa Claus during the lessons of Russian, German, and English at the Saturday School. The tradition of writing such letters has been around for many years. How much exactly – no one will say. Where she came from is also not known for certain. But the fact that it helps to create a festive mood and help the little person believe in a fairy tale is indisputable. We decided to support this New Year’s tradition. After all, modern children now have a real opportunity to write a letter to Santa Claus and even get an answer. Post offices of the winter wizard work all over the world, and there is also the opportunity to write to e-mail, including to the Russian Santa Claus at his residence in the city of Veliky Ustyug in Russia.
In these lessons, the guys received colorful templates and learned a certain structure of writing letters. The letters began with a polite greeting, then the guys asked Santa Claus how he was doing. This teaches children to be polite and respectful towards their elders. Then the guys wrote a few words about themselves, about their family, about their favorite activities. In the next part of the letter, the children told how the year had passed, what achievements they had, what good deeds they had done, and what new things they had learned. Here children learn to reflect, evaluate certain actions and successes.
Then the children shared their wishes and dreams, and kindly asked Santa Claus, Nikolaus, Santa Claus for gifts for the New Year. The guys in their letters not only asked him for gifts for themselves, but also for their relatives and friends. Many children asked Santa Claus to return health and peace to all people, so that the coronavirus pandemic finally ends, and that all people of the world become happy. At the end of the letter, the children congratulated Grandfather Frost on the upcoming holidays, wished him good health, and thanked him in advance for the gifts. And of course, at the end they signed a letter, not forgetting to indicate their return address for a reply. Some children included cute drawings of their own in the letter. Judging by the inspired faces of the guys, each of them wrote what he really dreamed of and what was worth thinking about. After school, the children took the letters home to show their parents, read what they wrote, and then went to the post office and, in a signed envelope, sent letters to Santa Claus. We really hope that all their letters will fall into the hands of a magician, and they will receive what they dreamed of.
The Christmas festival at the Russian Center will run until December 19. Its program also includes the City of Craftsmen, an art class for large installations from recycled materials, festive programs about the traditions of celebrating the New Year and Christmas in different countries, numerous creative workshops on making Christmas tree decorations and gifts, and, of course, the long-awaited New Year’s performances by the Theater Studio “Nutcracker”. Santa Claus and Snegurochka are on their way, and they are bringing their favorite Russian New Year gifts for all the children in the Russian Center.
We would like to thank the Deutsche Stiftung für Engagement und Ehrenamt Foundation for supporting this Christmas festival.
Natella Yakimov
Russian Center in Nuremberg
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