- Ukrainian refugees in the US are planning their first Christmas away from home.
- Mariia Valova, who moved to Illinois, told Insider that her husband still lives in Ukraine.
- Christmas will feel different, but she will do her best to restore the Ukrainian Christmas spirit.
Loading Something is loading.
Thanks for registering!
Access your favorite topics on the go in a personalized feed. Download the app
Many Ukrainian families who fled the Russian invasion of their country will celebrate the holiday away from home for the first time this year, bringing old traditions to communities they are just learning about.
“I’m not going to be sad about these things that our family isn’t here and my husband isn’t here,” said Mariia Valova, who moved to Indian Head Park, Illinois on Sept. 22. “I thought I could do it, but I don’t want to do it. I hope that everything will end and that God will help us in this. So I won’t be sad about that. And I’ll try to keep all the Christmas traditions here.”
The small town she now resides in is about 20 miles southwest of Chicago and about 5,000 miles from her hometown of Berezhany in western Ukraine.
Despite the distance, she’s adamant about celebrating Christmas the way she would at home – with a few modifications.
Normally, her family would observe the holiday on January 7 to follow the Julian calendar, she told Insider. But this year the Ukrainian church near where she lives is following the Gregorian calendar.
“So we’re going to celebrate with the rest of the world on December 25,” Valova said, speaking through a translator.
The Russian invasion that began on February 24 has forced millions of Ukrainians to flee their homes. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, more than 7.8 million Ukrainians have fled to different parts of Europe since the invasion began. In the first week of the war alone, more than 1 million Ukrainians left the country.
Ukrainians who spoke to Insider over the course of the ongoing invasion painted a bleak picture of the devastation. They have described hearing rockets streak through the sky in the middle of the night, sharing a single bulletproof vest while Russian soldiers sped through their cities and troops fired on homes and hospitals.
Valova said being in Ukraine during the war felt “overwhelming and dangerous”.
In July her uncle Yuriy Serembytsky told her that she and her two daughters could live with him in Illinois until the end of the war. Once the paperwork was in order and with the help of RefugeeOne, a Chicago-based immigration and naturalization organization, the three relocated to the United States.
“When I first set foot on American land, I felt like my kids were safe here,” she said.
A bowl of kutia, a ceremonial Ukrainian grain dish. Courtesy of Mariia Serembytsky.
Although Valova has her uncle and daughters with her, Christmas will feel radically different this year. Her husband, for example, stays in Ukraine. And so did her grandmother, who prepared pampushkies, a traditional Ukrainian donut, every year for the holidays.
Valova said she will be preparing other traditional Ukrainian dishes for the holiday, like a stuffed cabbage dish called holubtsi and potato dumplings.
But she won’t make pampushkies.
“It was made by my grandmother, so I’m not going to do it,” Valova said. “But I ordered them [a] Ukrainian lady.”
Dmytro and Ludmila Yelenets are also planning to make adjustments to their holiday celebrations this year. The couple, originally from Odessa, Ukraine, moved to a neighborhood outside of Seattle in September with their 6-year-old daughter.
In an interview with Insider, Dmytro recalled celebrating Christmas with neighbors in Odessa. He and his family went from house to house singing Christmas carols and wishing the neighbors happy holidays. They also attended events at their neighborhood church.
Ludmila and Dmytro Yelenets. Courtesy of Ludmila and Dmytro Yelenets.
They’ve had to find another church since moving to Washington, and he and his wife miss their friends and neighbors dearly, he said, especially as the holiday nears.
“But we go to church and meet new people,” he said through a translator. “We’re trying to make new friends.”
Valova acknowledges that this year will feel different. But her plan is to recreate the elements she can and “transfer” the Ukrainian Christmas spirit to her new home in the US.
Her children have already started making Christmas decorations, she said, and plan to set up a stall at her newfound church to sell them and raise money to send to the Ukrainian army on the front lines of the war.