Christmas is one of the main holidays of Christians. The Orthodox celebrate the birth of the Savior on January 7. In the temples and monasteries, the Majesty is celebrated, the tsar’s clock and All-Night Vigils are served.
Each holiday has its own “code of conduct”, which prescribes to act in a certain way and provides for prohibitions. So what cannot be done at Christmas?
In the church
When going to the Vespers and other services, you need to take care of the external and internal well-being. Women refuse cosmetics, put on closed dresses or put on a sweater and skirt. There should be a scarf on the head. Men, by contrast, come to the temple with their heads uncovered.
The main thing that you can’t do at Christmas is to come to the church angry, aggressive, with a feeling of resentment towards your neighbor. The heart should be filled with joy at the birth of Christ. Confession and communion help to achieve this state of mind.
During the service it is forbidden to be distracted, too carefully consider the icons and clergy. You need to stand with your head bowed and listen to prayers.
It is a great sin to leave the service before it ends. All prayers and worship are performed with thoughts of God.
At home
Preparation for Christmas begins with fasting, and on the eve of the holiday, they starve completely. On Holy evening, they begin to eat only when the first star appears.
What can not be done at Christmas, except for refusal to eat before the set hour? Put on old clothes, come to the holiday in black, do the hard work. The dishes for the festive table are prepared in advance. It is allowed to talk only on the 7th day after the Vespers. Needlework and crafts are also excluded. It is not recommended to drink water for breakfast, otherwise in summer thirst will torment, and the owner of the house should not leave the yard so as not to "endure" family well-being.
Fortune-telling is strictly forbidden on Christmas night. They try their luck, as a rule, during Christmas time, but such a pastime is not welcomed by the church.
Hostesses do not clean up until January 14, and after the old New Year, garbage is collected and burned in the yard.
On Christmas Eve it was not allowed to wash in the bath. And the point here is not only in the upcoming chores (chopping wood, applying water), but also in the fact that water washes away sins, and on such an important holiday a person was instructed to cleanse himself by fasting and prayer.
They didn’t hunt during the Christmas holidays. It was believed that at this time the souls of the dead infiltrate animals.
Our ancestors clearly knew what should not be done at Christmas. Signs go back to paganism, when a person considered himself a part of nature and strove to live in harmony with the outside world.
In relation to others
Christmas is a family holiday, which is why it is celebrated among relatives. Guests, as a rule, are not invited, but those who come are received with honors.
Before the revolution, it was customary to pay visits to the Holy Week, however, staying in a strange house did not exceed 15-20 minutes. At this time, congratulations and wishes were pronounced. A long stay also refers to what cannot be done at Christmas. With the invention of telephones, short visits were replaced by calls.
During Christmas, one must not forget about one's neighbor. Earlier on Christmas it was customary to give alms and treat the poor.
During the days of the celebration of Christmas, they remembered not only the living, but also the dead. A candle was lit on the table and devices for ancestors were placed. Therefore, when Christmas comes, what you can’t do on this day is to forget about your roots, about those who lived on the earth before us and contributed to our birth.
All of the above is true not only during the Christmas holidays, but Christmas is an additional reason to recall moral and family values, to think about how a Christian should behave.
Alone with myself
During church holidays, attention should be paid to your inner world. No exception is the Nativity of Christ. What can not be done on January 7 is to accumulate hatred, envy, anger, despondency, other negative emotions and feelings in the soul. The soul must be open to God; therefore, thoughts of carnal pleasures should not be allowed to become lascivious.
Traditionally, holidays are celebrated at the table. But, although conversation is allowed after the Christmas fast, overeating is still not worth it.
Christianity and paganism
Some prohibitions are associated with the rejection of pagan traditions by the Christian religion. Back in the 19th century, it was declared at the state level how to properly celebrate the Nativity of Christ. It was forbidden to engage in idolatry, to dress up in inappropriate attires, to arrange songs and dances. At the same time, Christianity did not completely eradicate paganism, but transformed it.
The Church allows during the Christmas holidays to show childlike spontaneity and have fun from the heart, and even monks sing carols today. Singing allows you to feel the atmosphere of the holiday, get rid of gloom and stress.
