Chapter Text
Shane is getting ready to get the Christmas tree from the garage, and all the other holiday things - a wreath, a few rolls of garland, a tub of neatly coiled Christmas lights, and a whole organizer with meticulously packed Christmas ornaments, when he suddenly realizes that he doesn’t know how Ilya decorates for holidays or if he even bothers with it in the first place. Shane goes looking for Ilya and, unsurprisingly, he finds him on the couch watching a Western Conference game and incoherently mumbling under his breath in Russian.
- Wanna help me get the tree and the decorations from the garage?
- I get to watch your cute pópochka while you bend over looking for decorations? I could think of worse ways to spend the afternoon, moy pomidór.
- So that sounds like you’ll be of no help, got it. While we’re at it, is there a certain way you decorated your house for the holidays back home?
- Da, yes, of course, Hollander! Lots of colorful tinsel (gold, silver, pink, red, blue, green, purple) that you hang off the ceiling, decorate the walls and windows at your apartment and also at school/work/stores. And, of course, some New Year’s garland with twinkling lights: red, yellow, green, blue, white. Usually the lights could only be ON and OFF, but I once got lights with different settings and speeds that I flipped my bed around (more like I put my pillow where my feet were) so I could be next to the outlet where the remote was and select the way the lights sparkled in the middle of the night. How about you?
- It is pretty similar here, except a lot more Christmas wreaths, absurdly and obscenely decorated Christmas trees, and lots of poinsettias and mistletoes.
- What’s a missile...mee-sal-toh?
- Mistletoe! You place it on the door frame and whenever two people are underneath it, they’re supposed to kiss.
- I’m gonna order like twenty of those, Hollander!
- Hey, don’t threaten me with a good time, Rozanov!
- We also decorate New Year’s trees as well, but in a more traditional fashion - ornaments, tinsel, even glass beads, and always a star or a tree topper on top of the tree. We had two trees, and Andrei and I fought for the small one with cute plastic mini-ornaments, because you could have it in your own room and check underneath it every morning without having to go to the living room. And don’t ask me why, but there is a tradition to have a glass ornament of a pickle on the tree.
- Oh yeah, I’ve heard of the christmas pickle, but we’ve never really done it.
- It’s a thing here too?? I thought we were the only crazy ones to have something like this; apparently it symbolizes good fortune and good luck in the new year.
- I just asked my mom and she said that at home, an ornament in the shape of a pickle is hidden on a Christmas tree, with the finder receiving either a reward or good fortune for the next year. But you can’t use your hands to help you find it and since it’s almost the same color as the tree, it’s not always easy to spot it right away. Kinda like the scavenger hunt.
- I had no idea it was a thing here. Go figure! Oh, and the hand-cut snowflakes that we would tape to the windows! My mom, Andrei and I did that when we were little, I always liked doing it with them.
- We do that too!! Maybe we should do it with the kids when we visit them in the hospital next.
- Hollander, I could kiss you right now! And I don’t even need a mistletoe.
