Refugee Oleksandra Novatska fled Lviv by car with her 13-year-old daughter Anna Romanyuk after the war started.
Oleksandra, 49, also finds it hard to be in a festive mood, considering the circumstances for family members in Ukraine.
But she has decorated her new home in Dumfries and is hoping to organise a traditional dinner for the Ukrainian Christmas Eve date of January 6.
She said: “In our country, Christmas is a family holiday, when all generations gather at one table for Christmas dinner. For me and Anna, Christmas will be different this year.
“Traditions were always preserved in our family, even in those times when it was forbidden in the Soviet Union.
“The whole family always gathers at the oldest member of the family.
“When I was a child, we always went to my great-grandmother’s for Christmas. Now we all gather at my mother’s house, as she is the oldest.
“Together we prepare 12 special Ukrainian Christmas dishes and in the evening, when all adults and children gather together, light a candle and have dinner.
“I love it when the youngest members of the family sings carols for the elders after Christmas dinner. They prepare for this in advance, plan out a script for a small nativity scene action. In our country it is called Vertep.
“They have rehearsals and present it to us as a mini performance with musical instruments, poems and carols. They also come up with costumes according to their roles. It is always very fun and cute.
“This year, some Scottish friends of ours invited my daughter and me to their house, for a Scottish Christmas. It was so nice to feel that someone cares about us, making sure that we don’t feel sad and lonely during the holidays.
“ We are very grateful for this. We have the opportunity to see and experience Scottish Christmas as it is.
“We don’t know all the Scottish traditions yet, but we like the ones we’ve already discovered for ourselves.
“Anna has friends who told her about the advent calendar, Elf on the Shelf, Christmas dinner and more.
“Her school had a very nice Christmas fair and Christmas ceilidh.
“She is also in the Christmas pantomime at the Theatre Royal, which she really likes.
“It was unexpected for us that the preparations for Christmas here began at the end of October, the beginning of November, but it was so joyful to see how the number of Christmas decorations around increased every day.
“And most of all, I like to see Christmas trees and Christmas lights shining in the windows of houses.
“We also decorated our apartment with Christmas lights, and it adds to the good mood.
“It is also very symbolic, because we know that now, due to the war in Ukraine, there are problems with the electricity supply, and many people light up their homes with Christmas lights on batteries when there is no electricity. So we are on the same page.”
Oleksandra now wants to organise a big Christmas dinner in Dumfries for Ukrainians on January 6. She wants to prepare traditional dishes and gather together at the table to have dinner, talk, and sing Ukrainian carols so no one feels lonely on the Christmas holiday.
