January 6, 2017

St. Nicholas Workshop held in Somerset, N.J., at Ukrainian History and Education Center

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Natalia Honcharenko

Young workshop participants making traditional paper doves, vertep stars and St. Nicholas ornaments.

He was greeted with the traditional Ukrainian carol “O, Khto, Khto, Mykolaia Liubyt’” (professing children’s love of St. Nicholas). St. Nicholas met with each child and rewarded them for their good behavior throughout the year by presenting a goodie bag filled with treats and toys.

st-nick-examining-ornamentsThe Ukrainian History and Education Center staff and volunteers decorated the historic home in festive Christmas decor, offered complimentary refreshments of coffee, hot chocolate, bagels and cookies, and conducted an educational workshop.

Both children and adults participated in learning about traditional Ukrainian ornaments and were able to make their own ornaments to take home, ranging from simple cut paper and St. Nicholas cookie ornaments to the much more challenging mobiles of geometric figures made from thread and paper straws.

St. Nicholas stayed through the entire afternoon for “pictures with St. Nicholas.” Everybody attending was able to have photographer Christine Syzonenko, a parishioner of St. Andrew Memorial Church, take a picture with St. Nicholas and bring home a print or have the photos e-mailed to them.

The first floor of the Fisher House was decorated with unique Christmas trees decorated with traditional Ukrainian Easter eggs (pysanky); spiders and spider webs – a tradition based on a Christmas legend; sheaves of wheat, symbolizing the bountiful harvests for which Ukraine is known; and Orthodox icons with hand-embroidered ritual cloths. A fifth tree was decorated during the event with the ornaments made by participants of the workshop.

20161218_142426Homemade Christmas cookies baked by parishioners of Holy Ascension Parish in Maplewood, N.J., were available for purchase. All proceeds of the event support the educational efforts of the Ukrainian History and Education Center.

To learn more about the center, its current programs and exhibitions, or to join the mailing list, readers may visit the UHEC website at www.UkrHEC.org, or Facebook/ukrhec.

Oksana Pasakas is education and program director at the Ukrainian History and Education Center.

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