Before New Year’s Eve, my parents would pull out a basket filled with fruit. 

I grew up in a village where fruits and vegetables were just in season. And so my parents would buy apples, wrap them in newspapers, and when they pulled out this basket before New Year’s Eve, they would give us a few apples each. We’d unwrap them. It was so interesting… Oh, green! And the other one unwrapped them: I have a red one! But the most interesting thing was when we found, for example, some exotic fruit among this pile. They weren’t brought to our village, but if my father was on a business trip, he would buy this fruit in the big city.

Parents then took out this newspaper and read what was written there in the fall… Lisa, – shouted Dad, – Can you imagine?… 

Alevtina