It's not going to be Christmas in Russia for almost another two weeks--Christmas is January 6 on the Orthodox Church's calendar. But given that a Russian Christmas feast is a twelve-course event--one course for each of the apostles--you might need to start cooking early.

Russia isn't the only place that has a large number of courses for a special occasion meal. I grew up in a household that followed the southern Italian tradition of seven fishes (and seven times as much garlic) on Christmas Eve. But planning and cooking 12 courses can be daunting, so here's what to do once you clean away the presents and the pots and pans of your Christmas meal tomorrow.

Step one is to prepare the kutya, a sweet wheat berry porridge that is also sometimes transliterated as kutia. Because of its ingredients--which also include honey, poppy seeds and nuts--Russians believe it symbolizes hope and immortality and have made it the traditional first course of their Christmas eve feast. The wheat berries need to be soaked first, like dried beans, then slowly cooked. This traditionally meant a lot of watching and stirring a pot, but a slow cooker can save you a lot of time and effort. There are two recipes for kutya on Recipezaar.com. I liked the taste of kutya, but I think it would be better as a hot cereal for breakfast--it was too sweet to be the first course of a long dinner.

What the other 11 courses need to be is a matter of some debate, except that there is no meat in the meal. "Please To The Table", my staple Russian cookbook, features a salmon in aspic in its Christmas dinner, but aspic is a terrible thing to do to that great fish. I had a wonderful roasted salmon when I was in Vladivostok for my first adoption, and that's what I put on my first Russian Christmas menu. But before you get to the fish, you have to have a soup: Some menus I've seen say it should be solianka, some a mushroom soup, some prescribe borscht. There is also a lot of honey, on its own as and as a sweetener in some of the breads on the table.

Take a look around the Internet for Russian Christmas ideas and start your own holiday tradition!

Image: Digitaldundee at Morguefile.com