20 December, 2014

The world details of Christmas celebration

Today’s session of the GABFEST English Speaking Club (Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine) was dedicated to the introduction of the some unknown in this part of the world details of Christmas celebration.
The session started with the Christmas greetings from Santa Clause (club member Igor). For small talk we have chosen the topic about Xmas flowers. We have compared the staple Xmas decoration in USA and Ukraine. Euphorbia pulcherrima, a native of Mexico, was adopted in America as a Christmas staple. Schlumbergera bridgesii, a native of Brazil, is the Xmas cactus popular in Ukraine. The round table of the Gabfest club was decorated today with such plant. It had beautiful, delicate flowers at the end of each leaf.
 

In the main part of the session the club members read and translated an article about such element of Christmas decoration as nativity scene. The article revealed some historic facts about this phenomenon. A nativity scene is a depiction of the birth of Jesus as described in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. To better understand what is depicted in the nativity scene the club members were offered a slide show with a task - to read and translates the Christmas story. Our American Guest Mr. Jason was invited to the session and contributed to the information about the US tradition of Xmas celebrations. The club members had a chance to tell Jason about Ukrainian traditions of Christmas and explained the differences.
During the art break the group had a chance to sing the popular Christmas carols while club member Valentina accompanied them on the piano.
The fun continued with a traditional Xmas tea ceremony - with assortment of cookies. A multitude of world musical hits about Christmas was checked on YouTube. Big screen projection of the favorite clips created unforgettable atmosphere!

Number of participants – 27 persons.




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