Христос Рождається!
Ukrainian is celebrated on January 7th because, like many countries where the main Church is the Orthodox Church, Ukraine uses the old 'Julian' calendar for their church festivals. WIth the large Ukrainian population here in Edmonton, many in the community are familiar with Ukrainian Christmas. In Ukrainian, Happy/Merry Christmas is Веселого Різдва {Veseloho Rizdva} (Merry Christmas) or Христос Рождається {Xhrystos Rozhdayetsia} (Christ is Born).
What better way to celebrate the occasion than with a Day After Ukrainian Christmas Gift Exchange?!?
--- I have absolutely no shame in admitting that I completely stole this event idea (with permission) from one that I had seen hosted previously. While I hadn't been able to attend, I loved the idea so much that I wanted to recreate it to kick off 2022. ---
This is an outdoor event at Cameron Heights Park.
All restrictions in place at the time of the event will be strictly adhered to.
IF the cold snap doesn't break by then, people can feel free to stay warm and cosy in the comfort of their cars and then jump out for a very quick hello and coordinate swap at 11:45.
Everyone is welcome to attend, but if you want to participate in the gift exchange you will need to follow the guidelines below.
The Day After (Ukrainian) Christmas Gift Exchange Guidelines:
1) One container per gift exchange participant. If you share a geocaching name, each person can still bring a gift to exchange. You must hide a "gift-cache" (don't publish it to geocaching!) and bring the waypoint to the event in order to participate.
2) Prior to coming to the event, you must hide a gift [the Day After (Ukrainian) Christmas cache] to be exchanged with another geocacher somewhere within 7.5 kilometers of Cameron Heights Park. Do not publish the gift on geocaching! This is not an official geocache! The gift can be whatever you like, such gift cards, unactivated geocoins, TB dog tags, swag items, cookies, books... Please use your own judgement in selecting your gift items, remembering that children may participate as well. Place your gift items in a typical cache container (ie tupperware, lock n lock, Christmas tin, and so on) and hide it to be found later that day. Since your container will be found later the same day, you may include food or scented items, which are normally absolutely forbidden. Don't forget to write down a waypoint for your hidden gift. As an unpublished cache, there are no distance restrictions from another cache.
3) Gift value: $20
4) Bring your waypoint (coordinates) to the event. This can be written a card, box, small geocache, a nano, a potato masher, or anything that can hold the coordinates of your gift cache. In addition, it would be a good idea to write your geocaching name and cell phone number on the paper just in case your recipient needs assistance. Your cache can be a puzzle, multi-stage, or whatever adventure cache you want to make. As all levels of geocachers are participating, consider the difficulty of finding or accessing your gift cache.
5) At the event, the coordinates will be exchanged randomly.
6) After the coordinate exchange, go find your gift cache. Remember... the entire cache is yours to keep including the container so make sure you take everything with you after the hunt. These containers are not to be left behind.
7) When you log the event as attended, please thank the cacher who hid your Not-Christmas Cache for the gift if you also participated in the exchange. You may share what your gift cache contained if you like and feel free to post pictures, even a picture of the hiding spot.
If you need a warm up after the event, Malina is a nearby Ukrainian bakery/cafe with all sorts of warm drinks and hearty Ukrainian foods that will warm you to your very soul. Highly recommend stopping in and picking up a little treat for yourself!!
tl;dr
1) Hide a present with 7.5km of Cameron Heights Park.
2) Mark a waypoint.
3) Bring waypoint to the event on January 8th.
4) Get your 'gifted' waypoint and go locate the present that someone has hidden for you.
5) Log as attended and thank your gift-giver.