Christmas and New Year's in Azerbaijan

I can't believe this Christmas season is almost over! Although I don't like the cold and rainy weather that comes with this season, I love the Christmas spirit that is in the air, the decorations and the many delicious Christmas foods.
We had a wonderful christmassy December this year. I decorated our apartment the weekend after Thanksgiving, we went to a Christmas bazaar in town, attended a choir Christmas concert, listened to lots of Christmas music, made some German gingerbread, caramels, Kinderpunsch, played Christmas music throughout the month, went to our embassy's Christmas activity, and Anthon designed a recycled Christmas tree for work.
They even made a video of the process:
https://www.facebook.com/baku.usembassy/videos/1446328128718427/

We also hosted Christmas movie nights every Saturday before Christmas. It was fun to watch some of the Christmas classics again like Elf, Home Alone, and the Muppets' Christmas Carol.
My mother arrived in Baku on the 23rd, and on Christmas Eve, we had a bunch of people over to sing Christmas carols with us. It was so lovely and made Christmas Eve very special.

A Christmas bazaar - it was sooo crowded!

Christmas activity at the Ambassador's residence. They had little work stations set up for the kids where they could decorate sugar cookies, decorate hot chocolate mix bags, write a letter to Santa and take a picture with him. William was not too happy to meet him :-)

Homemade caramels - yum!

Preparing our home for Christmas Eve

When I first saw Christmas decorations being put up in malls and stores in Baku, I was a little bit confused. I knew that Azerbaijan was about 97% Muslim, but since this country is a post-Soviet country, I thought that Azerbaijanis might actually celebrate Christmas. So, I decided to ask a couple of locals about the holidays.

Christmas decorations throughout the city

From what I understand, Christmas is only celebrated by a few people, mainly the Expats that live here, and small groups of Catholics and Protestants. Here, Azerbaijanis' "Christmas" is the New Year's celebration.
What are considered typical Christmas decorations in many Christian countries around the world, are New Year's decorations in Azerbaijan, and therefore, Christmas trees are called New Year's trees, which are taken down about two weeks after New Year's.
Families celebrate New Year's on the night of December 31st and most people get January 1st and 2nd off. That's when families gather together, cook traditional foods and exchange presents. I was told that there are not specific New Year's foods, but common foods on New Year's are dolma, plov, fried chicken, cookies and dried fruits. Like in many other countries, people put presents underneath the Christmas/New Year's tree and parents tell their kids that Santa Clause brought them.
At midnight, people let their fireworks go off. Every year, thousands of Bakunians go to Baku's boulevard along the Caspian Sea to watch a firework show that the city puts up.

A New Year's market in the main downtown area

             

Lots of booths that sell all kinds of different foods and drinks, New Year's decoration, toys and other random things

I talked about Christmas/New Year's with an Azeri lady who is about 60 years old, and she told me that these holidays used to be a little different. Until about the 1980s, neighbors worked together a lot, their wooden doors were always open and people could come in whenever they needed something or when they just wanted to chat. Neighbors fed each others' children, shared leftover food, and watched each others' children whenever needed.

When she was young and her parents were still alive, they used to celebrate Christmas on the 25th and New Year's on the 31st, instead of only celebrating on the 31st. Families used to gather together with their neighbors and ate, sang and prayed together. So, it was more the neighbors that people celebrated with than with the extended family.
But this was more the case when there were more interracial couples, more Russians, and Armenians in the country. Since then, the number of non-Azeris has decreased and with that, the Christian Christmas on the 25th has slowly disappeared, and people have, in general, become more private just like in many other countries.
The lady that I interviewed also told me that people used to eat turkey on Christmas day, but now it's too expensive and people choose to eat chicken instead, or prepare something with beef or lamb. A popular side dish was salad.
And kids liked to make necklaces out of ring cookies called Sushki.

So yeah, it was very interesting learning more about Azeri "Christmas".
Tomorrow is New Year's Eve and we're looking forward to experiencing our first New Year's celebration in Azerbaijan. We might go downtown to watch the fireworks, or just be lazy and stay at home. We'll see.


Update 01/02/2017:

We made it to 2017! Pooh!
After a very lovely New Year's Eve dinner with friends, my mom who is visiting us for 2 weeks, and I went to Baku's Boulevard to see the fireworks.
We tried to get there by taxi, but about half way there, the traffic was so bad that we decided to hop out and walk. The downtown area was very crowded with tons of people walking towards the Boulevard. My mom said several times that it looked like a mass migration.
The fireworks were pretty good and it was fun to watch everybody celebrate into the new year.

The Flame Towers were lit up in Azerbaijan's flag's colors 

My mom, very relieved that 2016 is over :-)