A Christmas less ordinary: writers on festive memories and unusual traditions

From the scorned vegetarian to the competitive card-maker, four writers reflect on their favourite bygone Christmases and unconventional traditions

Olia Hercules
Growing up in secular Soviet Union, south of Ukraine, Christmas was forbidden. My family never celebrated it. We put up our tree and opened our presents on New Year’s Eve, instead.

But, when I was 10, in post-Soviet 1994, for Christmas, my family decided to take a pilgrimage to the tradition-laden Western Ukraine, a thousand kilometres away. We took a 16-hour train to get there, to discover our roots.