New Year's Eve Georgian Style

We have been to at least 19 parties since we arrived on December 29th. Celebrating New Year’s in Georgia might be more exhausting than working 2 full time jobs. Sleep is a fantasy that you grab whenever you get the chance. For me, it’s mostly while riding in the car to go to another party. I’m learning how to make myself function in ‘party mode’ on only 15 minutes of sleep at a time. However, the sleep deprivation is beginning to show: the other night while playing backgammon at our friend’s house, I completely forgot the rules. For those of you who know my propensity to play games, especially backgammon, this is unheard of, and, as far as I’m concerned, can only explained as a result of sleep deprivation. Last night I finally had to crawl into G’s cousin’s bed soon after arriving at their party for us because I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. I enjoyed resting in the room full of beds (everyone in the family sleeps in the same room) with people who love us laughing and carrying on in the other room. It felt a little bit like what I imagine heaven might be like.

Winter in Tbilisi is beautiful but apparently unusually snowy this year. In fact, G tells me that it actually feels more like Minnesota than Georgia, since it’s been snowing huge wet sloppy flakes every day since we arrived. The city’s holiday lights, however, are much more impressive than any in the U.S.: blue and white lights lead you down Rustaveli Avenue where you can see incredible displays on Freedom Square, Parliament, and city bridges. Parliament has a festival with game booths and an ice skating rink set up in front and the City seems to glow with old-time charm in a new world order. It’s hard to tell if the huge display will stay every year or if it’s especially geared toward promoting Saakashvili, who is fervently campaigning to win the election set for today (January 5th).

On a side note, I’ve never seen so much propaganda for a presidential election. It’s as if Saakashvili has taken over all advertisements: he's on every billboard, bus and advertisement space possible, yet he won’t talk to the press or debate issues for the election. He’s also made all public transportation free on Election Day and continues to endorse a fun and whimsical theme for his Georgia. I, however, continue to be a little skeptical (which many of you know I have a tendency toward), as you may be able to tell from my comment above. But enough politics! Back to the story of my New Year’s in Gerogia…

A traditional Georgian New Year’s Eve begins at midnight and in one’s own home. The new Georgia, however, is all about being fun and modern, and there was a huge festival outside Parliament, attracting mobs of people to the snowy streets. The Gipsy Kings even performed this year for entertainment. As my great wish for this trip was to have a traditional New Year’s Eve, we stayed away from the town center. Instead, we had a small meal (relatively speaking, of course) around 11:30 p.m., and drank a champagne toast at midnight to the television countdown.

Tradition holds that the first person through your door in the New Year brings luck for the entire year. Therefore, the first major wish one has every New Year’s Day is for an incredibly lucky person to knock on your door any time after midnight. Fortunately for G and me, the first person through our door was Tatuli, who arrived at a few minutes past midnight, bringing all of the luck we would ever need. With her parents in tow, she waltzed into our home, hoping that a few of the presents under our little tree would be hers. (Present-opening here is associated with the New Year rather than Christmas in the U.S.). As her luck would have it, of course there were many. After a small gift and candy exchange (one must never enter someone else’s home without a small token of candy on New Year’s Eve), Gocha and Ruska were off to a New Year’s party and Tatuli was off to her grandparents’ house, and our New Year in Tbilisi had officially begun.

We raced out of the house, candy in my pockets and gifts bundled in bags, rushing to be the first people in as many friends' and families' houses as possible. Our first stop, of course, was G’s parent’s house. Wanting to be true to tradition, I threw a few handfuls of candy through the doorway before entering. We arrived to a lovely table waiting for a party. We sat with G’s parents for a few toasts and a few bites and were then off to collect some friends to bring back for a party later in the evening. Or should I say, morning. We then went to collect our friends and bring them back to G’s parents’ house, each set of friends of course having a party in their own home for us when we arrived and threw candy through the door. We finally brought 4 friends back to G’s parents’ house around 4:00 in the morning and sat down for a huge party there, where we able to convince 3 more friends to come, including Jumber. The party ended around 6:30 (one of the attendees had a 5:00 curfew, so she was doing well only being 1½ hours late). Wanting to see more friends, I then convinced G to walk up to my godmother’s house to be Mekvle (the year’s luck-bringer) once more that night. Although he had had quite a bit of champagne by that time and had gotten quite comfortable on the couch, he rallied and went for an early-morning walk up the hill for one last glass of champagne and piece of cake. We made it back home by 7:30 and slept for most of the next day.

New Year’s Day was relatively uneventful: only two parties attended, one for a neighbor’s birthday and another in honor of our arrival. Not surprisingly, we pooped out early and went home around 1:00.

January 2nd is another big day in Georgian New Year’s Celebrations. This day is called “Bedoba” or “luck day” and tradition holds that whatever you do on this day is what you will do for the rest of the year. I wanted to see the lake. We tried to take the truck up to our old hang out spot at Kus Tba, but the snow was so heavy and slippery and the hill so steep, we couldn’t make it up, even in 4-wheel drive. (Georgian snow is incredibly slippery and they have no snow removal equipment or sand or salt for the roads, consequently, driving in this weather is next to impossible, especially up the steep inclines all over the city).

We eventually decided to head back down the hill, which was a good idea we later learned from our dear friend Irakly, a police man who spent most of the day pulling 4-wheel drive vehicles out of the ditches on the road up to Kus Tba until they started to lose the police vehicles as well. Eventually, he admitted that he put police tape across the road in order to avoid any more excursions gone wrong. Sad that I was to miss seeing the lake, we ultimately had a wonderful day walking in Vake Park, taking pictures of the snow and dropping in on dear friends at their home nearby.

Later that day, we visited Dad’s fiancé’s dear friend for the first time (who made wonderful vegetarian food), partied at G’s aunt Nana’s home in Rustavi and visited Nana’s daughter’s new apartment on our way home, drinking a champagne toast to wish them all the best in their new home for the new year.

For a foreigner, the most eventful part of Bedoba happened when we were at Nana’s (Soso’s sister’s) party. If you have been the object of a great Georgian toast, you will understand that the more bizarre (and large) the drinking vessel, the more meaningful the toast, the goal of such a show, of course, being to find a drinking vessel large enough to impress the guests when emptied in one tipping down the gullet. During a good supra, Georgians will always have a bowl (jammi) for special toasts to our ancestors and women. During a jammi toast, all of the men will stand and pay homage to those mysterious and wonderful people that have shaped and brought meaning to their lives.

When a Georgian party gets more lively, someone will invariably call for “the big glass”. At this time, many Georgians often pull out hollow sheep horns (the larger the better), the benefit to these, of course, being that their contents must be drunk all the way, as they cannot be set down right side up. Being the astute observer of human nature that I am, I’ve learned that this request is really a warning to all of us who are not participating in serious drinking that we are in for a long night.

Sometimes, when Soso is feeling particularly spunky, however, instead of calling for “the big glass”, he will look for larger and more bizarre drinking vessels, tapping into his creativity, flowing as freely as the wine. In the olden days here, a creative option for “the big glass” was the glass top of an oil lamp. Such an option was a bit discriminatory, however, because in order to drink without spilling a drop, a man had to have a particularly large thumb to seal the bottom of the lamp and make “the big glass.” This, of course, is generally not a problem for G’s family. As no oil lamps were in plain sight, Soso gazed up to the ceiling for another idea and found it in the chandelier.

Not being able to follow uncommon conversations yet, I was confused at the bustle that ensued. G, however, told me to grab the camera because the light fixture was coming down. Soso had found his “big glass”. Next, someone got up on a chair, unscrewed the light bulb, took out the glass fixture, washed it and gave it to Soso for his next toast. I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t remember what he toasted with the light fixture sealed snugly on the fleshy part of his thumb, because I was too busy trying to get a good picture!

After Soso’s light fixture toast, the rest of the men (except Soso’s sons, who had probably seen it all too many times) followed suit, each enjoying the challenge of drinking a full “big glass” without spilling a drop, looking to find whether Soso was satisfied with their performances, which he was.

Soso next suggested that Giorgi find a good drinking vessel and make his own toast. G was a little tired to accommodate his father’s request and gracefully declined. This is not to say that G has not stepped up on past occasions to honor such a request. I recall being home in Minnesota on one occasion when Giorgi was in Georgia and called to make a special toast to me over the phone. Never mind that I was sound asleep. Sleep of course, could wait, because he had chosen a very special drinking vessel for my toast: his shoe. Of course, at the time, I would much rather have had him with me than only drinking my toast thousands of miles away. Even if it was from his shoe. I didn’t understand that drinking an entire Size-13 shoe-full of homemade wine in my name was the ultimate honor and the non-impressed tone of voice that I returned over the phone gave a little pang to someone so devoted to his toast. Alas, as time has told we worked it out and I can now appreciate the high priority given to such a toast. No matter what time of the day or night!

While riding home from Rustavi between Soso and Giorgi in the front of the “Big T” (G’s Toyota T-100), I nodded off to sleep listening to laughter and conversation once again as we gave everyone rides home. I looked forward to getting to bed, proud of surviving so many parties and glad that it was relatively early in the evening (midnight). Soso and Giorgi sang to me and it was wonderful to have so much love all around. When we stopped to drop Soso off at his house, G turned off the truck and opened his door, heading inside the house. My confusion was palpable. I wondered if we were picking something up or dropping something off. “No,” was G’s reply: we had to end our Bedoba day at his family’s house. Alas! Another party! I rallied and went inside to another table decked out with food and champagne. I’m glad we went: we toasted not only our family affection for one another but also our friendship and how much we all enjoy one another’s company. We told stories and laughed into the night.

When 1:00 came, it was time to leave. We had officially started our New Year at 1:00 a.m. in G’s childhood home on Petriashvili Street and officially ended the New Year’s party streak at the same time and place 2 days later. In exactly 48 hours, we went to 11 parties, kissed 38 people, threw candy into 10 homes and basked in love, luck and happiness to bring forth the New Year. It was a wonderful celebration of life and family and the energy it created will glow for weeks to come.