Quote Originally Posted by xRoosterx
My family celebrates the American Christmas and although a lot of my family isn't Orthodox, the кутя is still made. mmmmmmmmmm кутя
Unfortunately I don't know the cyrillic alphabet yet, but I came up with "kutja" as a possible transliteration for кутя by using the translit.ru site. When I did a google search on "kutja" I found one result in the first several pages saying that said it is a wheat or barley porridge served during Easter or Christmas.

It also mentioned "kutya" as an alternative spelling and when I did a search on this I found many more results. Here is one of the links to information about "kutya" that I came across:

http://www.recipezaar.com/77525

To the Ukrainians Christmas is not Christmas without Kutya, a ritual dish and an integral part of the Holy Night Meal, is served only during the Christmas cycle of holidays which ends with the Feast of Jordan on January 19. The origin of this dish goes back to days immemorial when the early Ukrainian ancestors first cultivated wheat. A relic of customs practised three thousand years before the Christmas era. This dish should be prepared several days ahead of of time for flavour to develop. It keeps very well in the refrigerator for 2 weeks or so. Kutya is high in nutritional value and should be eaten any time.
If anyone has any Russian Christmas experiences they would like to share, I'd be interested to learn more about this tradition of serving кутя during Christmas meals.