Doing 6-7 days worth of the 12 Days of Imported Christmas every year (this year we could actually get all 12, you never know) has changed our YouTube viewing habits. Gordon regularly types in “Christmas in [country]” just to see if there is anything we need to try. When he pulled up Christmas in Georgia, the first video was of a wizened old man using a draw knife to make long curled ribbons out of a willow branch. We knew immediately that we would be making Chichilaki.

On the First Day of Imported Christmas, Gordon made a Chichilaki out of a branch pruned from my parents’ apple tree and I made a tiny tree skirt to go with it.