Merry Ukrainian Christmas, everyone

The author of a book about the festivities of the Ukrainian Christmas was in Estevan sharing the stories of her family's get togethers over the years.

Marion Mutala's first published book, Baba's Babushka, is the story of a young girl playing outside in the snow, when it starts to snow babushkas, the Ukrainian headscarf. A babushka lands on the girl's head and she is swept off to a time when her mother was her age and she learns about her ancestors' traditions on Christmas Eve.

Mutala was at Westview School on Dec. 15 speaking to students from the younger grades. She told them a little about her heritage and how she came to write the book. She then read a few pages, before showing the students a slideshow of her own family's Ukrainian supper.
Mutala calls the book historical fiction.

"The fiction part is, I haven't seen too many flying babushkas around, but all the traditions are documented and they're all accurate to the Ukrainian Christmas Eve supper," she said.

Mutala is Ukrainian on her mother's side. The book is tied very closely to her experiences with her family and it takes place in Hafford, Sask. where her mother grew up.

"The house is still standing that my grandparents and my mom lived in, and also it's in the story. The pictures are unique to my story because they are based on my family. My mom's the baba in the story, I'm the little girl, Natalia, and my grandparents are right in the story, my baba and my gido (grandfather)."

Her own family portraits are used in the illustrations of the story as the photos of the character's family.

She said the book is a celebration of her background, adding that people always need to celebrate their heritage. This book is the first of three that Mutala has for a planned trilogy. The next two will deal with Ukrainian Easter and a Ukrainian wedding.

"I think we all want to find out our roots and where we came from, so that's what I did. I wanted to find my roots, so in 2009 I went back and saw where my grandparents came from, and actually met some long-lost relatives."

Her family is from western Ukraine.

Mutala said that she loves going to schools to talk to students because she is a former teacher. She taught for 30 years and has been writing her entire life she said, though this is her first published work.
The book's message is about more than just letting people know about her culture's traditions. The more everyone knows about everyone else's traditions, the better the global community will get along, she said.

"I'm teaching about Ukrainian culture, but it also promotes peace because I think the more you learn about each other, then you can tolerate and learn to get along and educate people. It's a great way to do that."

Using her family as inspiration for the book, and a real-life place to base the book was natural for Mutala.

"We have a love of family and culture and tradition, so we like to share. We spend a lot of time as a big family, we always try to get together and sing and continue our culture. We just like to be together and share stories and eat. Eating is a big part of socializing in a family."

With the photos she brought to show the students, it was very clear food is important. Even the particular dishes have some kind of significance or tradition.

"Food really brings people together in every culture. Unfortunately people in the world today are so busy they don't take time to sit down and eat with families, but we always have. That's how you connect."

She said her mother was a great cook who always had two deep freezers full of food. From time to time Mutala would get a call from her mother when she said that she needed some help getting rid of the food, so she could fill the freezers with new goods. The love of food has been passed down the generations in her family.

Mutala was also a little surprised by the success of the book. Published in October 2010, it was a bestselling children's book at McNally Robinson last year, and will again be a top seller this year.