Yolka

Yolka is the transliteration of the Russian word "ёлка" meaning spruce or fir. - Wikipedia

The good news about me as a content creator is that I don’t overwhelm you with content. My last post here was in January 2025, and here I am again, right on time. If all goes well, see you back here in 2027.

New Year’s Eve used to be my favorite holiday because my family doesn’t celebrate Christmas, not really. I was born in the former Soviet Union, that did not have Christmas, Jesus or any religion, so for the first ten years of my life I lived as an atheist who received gifts on New Year’s because while there was no Christmas, there was still the pagan holiday involving the “yolka” aka Christmas tree, and now I have to fight autocorrect to prevent it from changing it to yolk. As though I don’t have enough to worry about these days. We had a yolk-a every year, and when we immigrated to the United States, we were extra excited because all the Christmas tree vendors abandoned their unsold yolkas on December 26th and we got to take one for free! What a country!

This free-yolka train ended sometime in the 1980s-1990s. They say time heals all wounds, which is probably why I don’t remember the exact date. Or maybe it’s just part of the natural aging process. But by the time we had to work yolkas into our family budget, I developed a new favorite holiday- Thanksgiving.

But I still liked yolkas and most years, I would have one at home, purchased Christmas week because I knew that they would disappear by Christmas.

This year, however, I was yolka-free because my beautiful cat Ollie died and I later adopted two more cats (more about them soon!) and they are more kittens than cats and jump on everything and at this point my nervous system cannot handle a yolka/Christmas tree being toppled over.

But I missed having it at home. I missed the smell, the way it made everything look more festive and reminded me of my childhood.

So as I went on an early morning walk today, January 1st, I was happy to see this. Two of my favorite things- yolka and chocolate. All lit up. The way it was meant to be.

I hope that your year includes some of your favorite things.