What a nice topic!

How commercial is it now?
Quite commercial. The West gave us the bug. Though I don't see that as a bad thing neccessarily. It creates a special atmosphere and mood... This year I saw workers constructing a special long counter all devoted to New Year merchandise in the shopping center where I used to work as early as the beginning of November.

Do people in general celebrate the “season” even if it is not their faith?
New Year is celebrated by everyone with great style. And it looks the same as Christmas - fir-trees in living rooms, Father Frost (=Santa Klaus) bringing presents, etc. I don't really celebrate Christmas, first because I'm not religious, second, because New Year festivities come first on the 31st of December, so all principal energies are thrown into celebrating New Year and preparing the New Year meal. The people who are believers, though, do go to the church and probably make something special on January 7th.

When does the "season" start?
All those involved in commerce start early, by mid-November - December there are already decorations everywhere and things. Not on a very prominent scale, though. Normal people go crazy from December 25th, as Ramil said.

Are buildings and stores all decorated with lights and such?
Only some buildings are decorated on the outside and mainly in big cities. The bigger the city, the more lights and pomp, I s'pose. Where I'm from, we live mostly in apartment blocks, so there's no tradition of decorating 9 storey houses.

If I were to include a section about Dmitri remembering this as a child, what would stand out? What would be a “must have?”
Some sort of children's festival in the kindergarten or school -- they're called "outrennik" from the word "outro" -- morning, because, as children's festivals, they're conducted in the morning or afternoon, and not in the evening. That would be around the 25th of December but every school and organization decide for themselves -- it's just because the term ends and kids' vacations start a little earlier than January 1.
The whole of 31st of December is spent cooking the dinner. Mum cooking, Dad in and out, he has to go to the shop and buy something that Mum suddenly remembered that she needs for her cooking. A fir-tree decorated with fairy lights (or what d'you call 'em? Xmas lights?) and all sort of baubles. Tangerines. Salad "Olivier" and all sorts of yummy stuff... Some musical programmes on tv and old films about snow and Father Frost that create the background for the whole evening. The president's speech. Champagne. Fireworks -- though I'm not sure there were fireworks in the Soviet Union times, most probably not. These days I have a whole spectacle right in front of my window, so if I don't go out myself, I spent some time on my balcony watching the magnificent display. The firewors go off seconds after 12 o'clock strucks. At 00:00 exactly everyone's drinking champaigne.
The presents from Father Frost are found under the fir-tree on the morning of January 1. We don't have red socks hanging from the fireplace, in fact, not many people have fireplaces.

I recall hearing something last year, that people are given a number of days off from work and things pretty much shut down. This is an “odd” concept to me. How can businesses be “forced” to close for more than one day? Who pays the employees for all this time off? What if you want to buy something or need a service?
Only those people have a ten day leave (1-10 January) who are "white collars", that's to say, who work in organizations which can afford such vacations - managers, teachers, accountants... Shops work. I worked in a bookshop last year so I had to go to work on the 1st of January at 3 pm -- that was the time that our shopping center opened. It couldn't have been 10 am, as usual, since it's highly unlikely anyone could possibly manage to get up that early after the most important night of the year. I don't drink alcohol, so that was no problem for me, I didn't have a hang-over. Two of our girls spent the working time drinking champaigne and got rather tipsy.
Some ambulance (paramedics?) and militia workers have to work on the 31st of December and the 1st of January which are the worst days to have to work on because everyone else is celebrating. BUT, according to the law, you must have your ten days' paid leave in January, so if the organization can't provide you with holidays from the 1st to the 10th of January, you are still to have them dispersed throughout the month. I worked the whole January like that - 2 days of work, 3 days of rest, very relaxing it was. That's in theory, of course. Some organizations aren't so law-abiding and might make their employees work not only the whole of January but also 6 days a week instead of 5. I have a friend who works like that as a secretary for Kirby vacuum cleaners. She basically doesn't have any benefits provided by the law, like one-month paid leave every year, etc. I think it's outradeous. That's not what the 1917 Revolution was about!!

Old Christmas cards http://images.yandex.ru/yandsearch?t...82%D0%BA%D0%B0

There now. I've gone and done it again. I just can't write short posts.