In my childhood, gifts on New Year trees were most often given in paper boxes - with painted animals, Christmas tree balls, streamers and, of course, Santa Claus and the Snow Maiden. At the most prestigious Christmas trees, this coveted gift - two "Bear in the North" candies, a large chocolate medal, waffles, cookies, a tangerine and several Golden Key toffees - was packaged in a red plastic fish, Christmas tree or star. Such things were then stored for years. I went to Christmas trees because of the gifts, because to stand in a crowd of children and answer in chorus the stupid questions of Kikimora and company: “Where did the Snow Maiden run?!” - I didn’t like it... You had to come to some Christmas trees in a fancy dress, I didn’t have one, and they put a blue cardboard crown with sparkles on my short-cropped head... Who came up with the idea that childhood is a happy time?
There was one place where I liked the Christmas tree - at the Soyuzmultfilm film studio. There they didn’t impose any Snow Maidens or Kikimoras, they didn’t dance in a round dance, they simply sat them in a dark hall and for two hours they continuously showed the best cartoons in the world... And every year - a new series of “Well, wait a minute!”...
But I didn’t like Santa Claus. When I was three or four years old, my parents, who lived in a cheerful and crowded theater dormitory, asked a neighbor to dress up as New Year's Grandfather to give me a gift. And then the doorbell rang, I was led out into the corridor wearing a bow and a smart dress, I saw a big beard, a red bag, I heard a powerful bass voice: “Well, how did you behave?” - and... I sob into three streams - from fear. The young actor skillfully entered into the character. It was many years later that I learned that Father Frost is an evil Slavic deity by origin...
