The Where.ge Guide to the Georgian New Year Holidays

New Year and Christmas (celebrated on January 1 and 7 respectively) are the best-loved holidays on the Georgian calendar, seeing rounds of feasting, singing, dancing and church-going. It is also increasingly becoming a favorite time of year for tourists to visit, particularly those fond of skiing.

If you’re going to celebrate your winter holidays here, get ready to experience not only a new atmosphere, but a number of new surprises and emotions, too. The celebration of the winter holidays in Georgia lasts for around two weeks, with schools only breaking up at the end of December and the western Christmas passing almost unnoticed (though street decorations are up and lit from mid-December and shop displays tend to start selling Christmas from late November). If you are staying with a Georgian family during the holidays, your hosts will probably not let you leave the table until you have tried all the dishes and drunk all the wine offered (and you can prepare yourself for this in our Where to Eat and Where to Drink sections). Yet feasting is but a small part of what makes a Georgian Christmas.

The Decor

If you’re celebrating your holidays at a Georgian friend’s house, the first thing that might strike you as strange is the nut wood twig with long fluffy shavings decorating the most dominant spot in the house, perhaps alongside the more familiar fir. The twig is called a chichilaki. And while it does not permeate the entire room with the nice fresh pine aroma that fir does, it certainly serves as an interesting decorative feature and, for the Georgians, serves as a symbol of life and hope. A chichilaki is usually decorated with an assortment of fruits, berries and flowers as offerings to heaven for a bountiful harvest. Chichilakis are not a year-round Christmas symbol, however, as people ceremoniously burn them on the day before the Georgian Orthodox Epiphany on January 19, believing that the smoke takes away all the misfortunes of the year.

New Year

The chain of celebrations usually starts off on New Year’s Eve, with the festive table laden to breaking point with the most delicious homemade food, beautifully and richly presented, an abundance of various fruits, freshly picked vegetables, nuts and homemade sweets. The New Year feast will often include a piglet roasted in the local tone (bread) oven (pork is considered a symbol of prosperity), satsivi (see our Where to Eat section) and a wide choice of desserts to symbolize the hope for a sweet year ahead. And, of course, that wonderful homemade wine, accompanied by a number of eloquent toasts and some famous polyphonic singing. At midnight, Georgians, like most of the rest of the world, welcome the New Year with loud and colourful fireworks, following the ancient belief that fireworks chase away evil spirits. This is also the time when Santa Claus, or his Georgian equivalent Tovlis Babua, travels from house to house leaving gifts under the Christmas tree for kids who have been good. Once the family feast is over, at around 1 AM, the younger generation will head out to celebrate the occasion with their friends. An increasing number of bars, restaurants and hotels (see our Where to Stay section) are heading in the western direction by offering a full evening of entertainment for those not wanting to sit at the Georgian feast table.

Happy Feet

As the New Year begins, there comes the time of a special Georgian tradition, mekvele. Georgians believe that the first guest “with happy feet” who crosses the threshold of the house will bring joy and prosperity to the family. The mekvele is welcomed with a basket of delicacies in exchange for the candies s/he brings to the family to make the upcoming year sweet. The guest is usually either selected in advance from a circle of close friends or the role is taken on by a family member who leaves the room and reappears again, bringing happiness and joy.

Day of Luck, or “Start as You Mean to Go On”

After a brief pause in the drinking and feasting, January 2 sees many heading to church before partying again. It is Bedoba, the Day of Luck, which in Georgian tradition is said to determine how good the year will be. As if such an excuse is needed, Georgians tend to have as much fun on Bedoba as possible in order to guarantee a prosperous and joyful year ahead.

Christmas

The Georgian Christmas, coming some 10 days after the western version, also occupies a special place in the hearts and souls of Georgians. It is traditionally celebrated from the evening of January 6, with Orthodox Christian devotees attending a festive public service that lasts all night. After the service is over, Georgians continue the celebration at home, lighting candles and sitting at the holiday table once more, this time with even more delicacies, since for many Georgians the birth of Christ symbolizes the end of the fasting period. The next morning, the 7, is marked by a special Alilo procession, during which clergymen walk along the streets carrying icons, crosses, and flags, followed by Christians of all ages. Children dressed in white usually lead the procession, symbolizing angels on foot. As the ceremony proceeds, the participants collect donations and gifts to be given to orphanages and people in need. At the end, believers unite at Sameba (the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity) to accept the congratulations of the Patriarch of All Georgia on Christmas.

Old New Year

Nope, no time to nurse your hangover, as along comes the Old New Year, which, as paradoxical as its name may sound, finally concludes the winter celebrations. This holiday, celebrated on January 14, marks the New Year according to the old Julian calendar, as opposed to the Gregorian one which the world officially uses today. It is not a public holiday, so the shops will likely be open, yet it is a tradition observed by the majority of Georgians, many of whom do not even take the Christmas tree down before this date. The Old New Year is celebrated in a similar way to the regular New Year: with a festive table, an abundance of wine, and getting together joyful and friendly people to start the year as they mean it to go on.

Traditional Georgian Christmas Dishes

Every Christmas/New Year issue of Where.ge, we present to you the dishes Georgians traditionally make for the family table during the festive season. Well, this year we’re upping the ante and showing you how to MAKE them! [Source: Taste of Georgia published in 2018 by Sulakauri Publishing]

GURIAN PIE

Gurian Pie is available year-round, but it was traditionally baked as the first dish to be eaten after the winter fast and consisted of dough left overnight to mature, lightly salted cheese and hard-boiled eggs which had been pre-smoked on an open fire. Spot this crescent-shaped pie on the shelves of your street-side khachapuri bar.

INGREDIENTS

(DOUGH)

200 g flour

100 ml water or milk

5 g yeast

5 g salt

2 g sugar

20 ml vegetable oil

(FILLING)

200 g Imeruli cheese

2 hard-boiled eggs

(GLAZING)

1 egg yolk

50 ml milk

HOW TO MAKE IT

Dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water or milk. Add to flour and salt and knead it into a soft dough with greased hands. Put it into a bowl, cover it with a cloth and wait 30 minutes before kneading again. Then leave it to rise.

Grate or crumble the cheese and slice the hard-boiled eggs.

Take a handful of dough, roll it into a round shape and spread the cheese over half of it. Top with the egg slices and fold the empty dough half over the mix and pinch the edges together. Put it on a baking sheet, brush on the glazing mix and bake at 230-250°C for e8 minutes.

SATSIVI

Three western Georgian regions claim to have been the creators of this special New Year dish, though they each use a common recipe. Whether you try it in Samegrelo, Guria, Imereti or Tbilisi, you’re guaranteed to love it!

INGREDIENTS

Turkey or chicken

800 gr walnuts

100 gr onions

2-3 garlic cloves

1 tsp dried coriander

1 tsp blue fenugreek

½ tsp marigold

½ tsp cinnamon

½ tsp cloves

Salt and pepper to taste

HOW TO MAKE IT

Boil and dice the meat, sprinkle with salt and fry. Sauté the finely chopped onions. For the sauce, combine finely chopped walnuts, all spices and the sautéed onions and dissolve the mixture in the meat broth (with fat skimmed off) and stir until it is the consistency of thin sour cream. Put the meat into the sauce and boil for 5 minutes, stirring continuously.

Serve cold.

GOZINAKI

Gozinaki is a traditional Georgian dessert made especially for New Year’s Eve using nuts and honey. It is, by tradition, a symbol of prosperity and happiness, and no family table will be without it during the holiday.

INGREDIENTS

500g walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, sunflower seeds or peanuts

230 g honey

40 g sugar

HOW TO MAKE IT

Pour the honey in a pan and bring it to the boil, leave to cool, then boil and cool again twice more.

Add the nuts on the last turn and stir, letting the mix simmer for 5-7 minutes. Add sugar and simmer again for 2-3 minutes. Transfer the mix onto a damp cutting board and roll it out before cutting into diamond shapes.

PUMPKIN WITH DRIED FRUITS

Pumpkin, while best known as a Halloween decoration in the West, is considered an important part of the New Year feast in Georgia, with the locals seeing it as a symbol of prosperity and longevity. It is often brought to the house as a gift by the “mekvle,” the first guest of the new year.

INGREDIENTS

1 pumpkin

100 g prunes

50 g black raisins

50 g dried apricots

50 g almonds

100 g walnuts

10 g honey

ground cinnamon

ground cloves

50 g sugar

HOW TO MAKE IT

Cut the pumpkin in half and empty it of flesh and seeds. Dice the fruit and chop the nuts. Combine with the raisins, sugar, honey, ground cloves and cinnamon and spoon the mixture into the middle of the pumpkin halves. Bake both halves in the oven at 180° C for 50 minutes.

CHURCHKHELA

Churchkhela, “the Georgian Snickers,” is the most popular Georgian dessert and is eaten year-round but especially in the autumn and during the New Year festivities. Most commonly made with nuts, you can opt to put in raisins and dried fruits instead (or as well as). Slice it and put it on your Christmas table for guests to pick at before or after the feast.

INGREDIENTS

1 kg walnuts or hazelnuts

1 liter condensed grape juice (red or white)

150 g wheat flour

HOW TO MAKE IT

Thread a needle and push the thread through the half walnuts or whole hazelnuts. When you have a string of nuts, tie a knot to make a loop.

Heat the grape juice and add a quarter of it to the flour. Gently stir it until it becomes a smooth paste, then slowly add the rest of the grape juice and stir. Pour the mix into a saucepan and stir over a medium heat until it thickens. You’ll need around 20 minutes of continuous stirring to get it ready.

Now dip the threads into the hot grape paste, pushing the nuts deep into it with a wooden spoon, then slowly pulling them out from the top string. Hang each string to dry.

The GEORGIA TODAY team wishes all our readers a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year(s)!

By Ekaterine Tchelidze and Katie Ruth Davies