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The tourtières that Diane Zalusky prepared from scratch have been consumed and enjoyed, along with the Christmas cookies she made, and the réveillon with her husband’s family and the gift exchanges are behind them.

But in her family, Christmas comes twice a year.

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Zalusky, who is part of Montreal’s Ukrainian community, grew up in the Orthodox church. Most Orthodox and Eastern rite Christians — Ukrainians, Russians, Copts and Ethiopians among them — celebrate Christmas during the first week of January.

Their churches follow the older Julian calendar, which is 13 days behind the modern Gregorian calendar. Although the exact date of the birth of Jesus is not known, churches around the world agreed long ago to celebrate it on Dec. 25 — and Dec. 25 on the Julian calendar is Jan. 7 on the Gregorian calendar.

Zalusky has always celebrated Christmas twice. She learned as a child to make tourtière — each of her parents had a sibling who married into a French-Canadian family and had Christmas in December — and sang Christmas carols in December with her school choir.