Survive Christmas

The aim of the lesson: to understand how, under conditions of occupation, people were able to resist Soviet ideology and preserve Christmas traditions.

Christmas is one of the most anticipated celebrations of the year, and it may seem obvious that everyone can choose how to celebrate it – whether or not to attend church, what gifts to buy, and what food to place on the table. However, during the years of Soviet occupation, under a totalitarian regime, these celebrations and traditions were considered undesirable. They were replaced with New Year festivities, and people were denied the opportunity to celebrate Christmas as they had before. Yet even in such circumstances, people sought and found ways to celebrate Christmas according to old traditions.

During the lesson, students will learn what Christmas is and how it was celebrated during Latvia’s period of independence. They will discover how people in exile and imprisonment managed to create Christmas for themselves – with a tree sent from Latvia or made from broom branches, with a modest meal, with quietly sung songs. Students will learn how holiday traditions changed under the influence of Soviet ideology.

This lesson is about human strength and resilience, about the ability to resist the power and ideology of the Soviet regime, and about the capacity to survive and celebrate Christmas.