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How does every Ukrainian holiday begin? With a parent asking their children: "Do you know what day it is?" And together they recall and tell what is being celebrated today and how. It is thanks to this immortal little family ritual that Ukrainians have preserved the tradition of folk holidays from ancient times to the present day. And they have carried it through thousands of years of trials and struggles with an unquenchable flame.

We have our own children and conceived this book as a kind of "parental" story about holidays. But not only that. These pages contain songs, games, festive dishes, traditions, riddles, signs, handicrafts - everything that makes holidays special and memorable.

Christian and pre-Christian traditions are closely intertwined in the minds of Ukrainians and have woven a single fabric of the national holiday calendar. That is why we have constructed the story without focusing on purely folk or religious features. Each of the Ukrainian regions has its own unique traditions. Therefore, in line with the general customs, we have not forgotten about local peculiarities.

We hope that readers will enrich the information we have provided with their local holiday experience. The same goes for the music in the book. Each Ukrainian song has many variants of melody, lyrics, and performance features. We present only one of them, hoping that you will ask your grandmothers about the others. After all, the Ukrainian people have composed and preserved thousands of songs in their memory.

Many people worked on the creation of this book: folklorists, artists, musicians, designers, ethnographers, philologists. Of course, it is impossible to describe the endless world of Ukrainian traditions in a hundred pages. That is why we hope that this publication will serve as a guide to Ukrainian holidays, with the help of which adults and children will find many interesting and wise festive entertainments - besides the traditional feast.

And most importantly, they will remember how their grandparents, neighbours and fellow villagers celebrated. And they will preserve or even revive their own special celebrations. We speak our own language, believe in our own truth, and celebrate our own holidays - that's why Ukrainians remain distinctive and unique against the background of more "globalised" nations. So let's celebrate in the Ukrainian way, because we deserve it!