Felix Nativitatis
Growing up in Russia, Marjana Semkina didn’t celebrate Christmas. It wasn’t until she first came to the UK in 2014 that she experienced the festive season in all its overblown glory.
“Christmas was a very new thing for me when I started coming here,” Semkina explains. “In Russia, New Year is the bigger deal, and religious people celebrate Orthodox Christmas on January 7, but my family aren’t religious.
“The first time Gleb [Kolyadin, Semkina’s musical partner in Iamthemorning] and I came to the UK was in winter, and everything was just so beautiful. It was so over-the-top festive, with all the decorations – it was like being in a fairytale.
“Over time, I realised it is also very commercialised,” she laughs, “and puts enormous pressure on people. But I love the purest idea of Christmas, and of families celebrating together. I think it was Charles Dickens who started the whole cult of Christmas, and I loved seeing this connection to my
