Nikki Yeager

For New Year's Eve I had the pleasure of spending a long, fun filled evening with my boyfriend's Russian family. 

Very Russian family. 

After a few cups of champagne for good luck, I begrudgingly hopped into his parents' car and let myself be hauled off to his sister's house. 

10 minutes later I was ushered into an apartment by his little niece and nephew. And then, suddenly, I was in the middle of Russia. 

Surprise!

The center of attention was a huge flatscreen in the middle of the living room playing some incomprehensible New Year's Eve party scene complete with Cossack dancers, perpetual streamers and lots of people in ball gowns. 

And apparently it'd already been going on for hours. 

Which is when I thanked my lucky stars I had a few glasses of cheap champagne before braving the unknown world of foreign holidays. 

Next came the food. Like Mexican, all Russian food seems to be a mixture of the same 4 ingredients: beats, cabbage, sour cream and fat. Some of those combinations are perfectly delightful. Some, not so much. 

So his family chattered on about a million things I'd never understand in a language I'm totally unfamiliar with while I pushed a few items around my plate and actually ate the others. 

Then a look at the tv- Suddenly there was a full grown man with balloon-boobs (literally) shoved in his yellow pantsuit dancing on stage while a fifty year old woman crawled seductively across a cardboard table. Then the balloon-boob man put a big shiny tin-foil star on his head and continued singing to Russian music. 

Cut away to an army of bunnies. I kid you not. About 40 men were dressed in head to toe bunny suits and dancing in the background. 

No one else seemed to find that odd. 

I focused back on my plate to discover about 6 more items that his mom kindly added to my already full dish. She means well, but I really hate when my foods touch. And let me tell you this - there was a very large, unsanitary, food orgy happening on my plate. Most of it with things comprised of beets. Beet salad. Beet salad on top of fish. An egg with cavier on top and some sort of unidentifiable sour cream substance... all running together in a sticky, icky mess. 

His mom took a look at the t.v. for a split second and I snuck a few scoops of food to my boyfriends plate.

He rarely notices when I do that.  Lucky me. 

Then back at the t.v. All of a sudden there was a woman opening a champagne bottle and fluffing her carrot-orange wig. Then came the Santa-Man Number. 

Oh. My. Lord. 

The only black person in the entire show (and the entire venue) took stage in a modified santa costume. It was somewhere between a mix of elf costumes, santa outfits and harem pants. 

Don't ask, I can't make sense of it either. 

In the background similarly dressed men switched from ballet to cossack dancing and back again. Then came a cutaway to the same orange haired woman drinking her champagne, a quick view of the dancing bunny army and then back to the Santa-Men. 

The number came to a grand finale with lots of champagne toasting, the dark skinned man doing the splits and the background dancers pairing up in risque poses. 

Then - BAMMMMM - a fresh batch of streamers fell from the sky and everyone seemed oh so happy to have streamers fall inside their champagne glasses. 

And I giggled while everyone else watched without the slightest hint of amusement.  

....And then continued speaking in Russian while the strange pantsuit man with the tin foil hat took the stage once again.