Posts tagged with "wigilia"

Polish Christmas Eve Celebrations – one more time

Posted by Anna 5 Comments
Dec 12 2009

Because I know that not everyone reads all the comments to all the posts, I took the liberty of “borrowing” two entries from the “Polish Christmas Eve Abroad” post and including them here, as I think they are great and everybody should see and read them. :)

The first one is from Kim in Boston, and I think it’s absolutely perfect what she does for Christmas. I wish I could duplicate her holiday dinner, but alas, in my current location it won’t be possible. Read on, this is brilliant:

“My husband is Polish, we live in Boston. I surprised him our second married Christmas with a Polish feast I had researched and cooked. We read the Christmas story from Luke. We do a reading about the importance and symbols of the Polish Christmas traditions then break the blessed wafer with any guests we have. I set an extra place at the table and place straw under the tablecloth. Like his family, we include meat and do a smaller variety of Polish dishes but with my own twist – mushroom/barley soup, several varieties of pierogi, meat filled cabbage rolls, prune stuffed pork roast, beet salad, kraut w/polish sausage, rye bread, fruitcake, chocolates and cookies.

On Christmas Eve we exchange a Polish gift – book, crystal, ornament…use our Polish names, listen to Polish music and so on. On Christmas day we have a traditional American Christmas with stockings and ham and turkey. We open the remainder of our gifts Christmas night.

We also began the tradition of inviting friends over for Sunday evening suppers during Advent for a “Polish Christmas Eve”. Everyone has loved it, in spite of my husbands family being offended – it’s not traditional and I’m not Polish and blah, blah, blah!”

Sadly, I don’t understand her husband’s family’s reaction, certainly not in the Christmas spirit. But that’s just goes to show you how fiercely protective Poles are when it comes to “their” traditions and customs.

The second entry is from Kaz in Malaysia (Malezja), and I also like what she does – a combination of Polish and tropical celebration:

“We do both, which is interesting in equatorial Malaysia! J, my Polish hubby, was adamant that we wouldn’t have wet tissue; i.e. carp! But it’s Christmas Eve dinner, Portuguese Eurasian food (roast chicken, curry, rice), salads, pates, mulled wine, fake fireplace. And we go truly international for dessert…NY baked cheesecake, crepes suzette. I should take photos, shouldn’t I? Oh, and we had Mikołaj with the kids, and are looking forward to post-breakfast Christmas Day for the family loot-swapping!”

Mary in the UK, on the other hand, is a very lucky lady, as she can have both – one year the full thing in Poland, and the next – a mixed English/Polish Christmas in the UK:

“We tend to do both when we’re in the UK and have more of a Polish Christmas when in Poland.
Oddly, I only do the church thing in the UK.We don’t have the 12 dishes and the only person who’ll eat the fish with Mr K is my dad.
We do try to have different things each year through and people tend to enjoy it. Or they dsay they do anyway!

Presents are still a 25th thing as is the usual Christmas dinner (which I miss every other year.)
It does tend to spread things out because we see our extended family on the 26th!

So, that’s how we do it. It’s generally an amalgamation of traditions because neither of us wants the other to feel home sick.”

Ladies, thank you so much for all your comments and suggestions. They sure gave me something to go on. I still don’t know how exactly I’m going to go about it, but at least now I think it’s not as impossible as it had first sounded to me.
It’s been already decided however, that nasza Wigilia (our Christmas Eve) would be moved to Christmas Day, but other than that, if we pay no attention to the calendar, we should be fine.
Now I just need to figure out where to get opłatek. Hmmm…
P.S1. And forget about the fish. I can’t stand carp. Nienawidzę karpia.

and P.S2. And I think it’s safe if I say that I’m speaking for everybody here, Miss Kaz, we’re expecting photos of your polsko-malezyjskiej Wigilii!

Polish Christmas Eve Abroad

Posted by Anna 9 Comments
Dec 8 2009

So, have been naughty or nice? Did Święty Mikołaj bring you anything exciting? What? Don’t tell me that you forgot about Mikołajki (6 grudnia – December 6th).

I wrote about Mikołajki last year, and I’m sure you remember that I think it’s a totally unnecessary tradition. I would much rather hold off for a bigger and better present on Christmas.

And how is your writing of Christmas cards (pisanie kartek świątecznych) coming along? I’m very proud to say that I only have a couple left to send out. And after that’s done, I’ll finally have enough time to sit and ponder how I’m going to throw a traditional Polish Wigilia (Christmas Eve dinner) in this foreign land.

And actually, I have a question for those of you with Polish spouses: how do you celebrate Christmas? Do you do it the Polish way? Or the “foreign” way? Or a combination of both, perhaps?

Do you do the whole Wigilia bit with 12 different dishes and hay under the tablecloth? With opłatek and gifts on the 24th?


Barszcz – one of the traditional Christmas Eve dishes.

I am asking because this year I was drafted to prepare tradycyjne polskie święta – a traditional Polish Christmas. And frankly, I’m worried. Very worried. My utter lack of culinary skills combined with the utter lack of Polish products here is a very bad combination. So your suggestions regarding how I can solve this problem will be much appreciated.

And descriptions of your traditional polskie święta na obczyźnie (Polish Christmas in foreign lands) will be very helpful as well.

So please, don’t be shy and do share! I’m sure we all can learn something new and interesting from each other.

Wigilia

Posted by Anna No Comments
Dec 23 2008

Tomorrow is Wigilia (Christmas Eve) and it’s one day that most Polish families take very seriously. I said “most” because some celebrate it in a less traditional way – like at an all-inclusive resort in Madeira or Tenerife, for example.

But for most Poles, Wigilia means getting together with their extended family, eating huge amounts of food and exchanging Christmas presents.

Wigilia is not only the day before Christmas, it’s also the traditional Christmas Eve supper (dinner) that’s supposed to consist of different 12 courses/dishes. Now, I don’t have much experience with that, because as I mentioned on this blog already, my family was not the traditional type when it came to cooking. So while I’m familiar with barszcz, I’ve never seen “uszka” in it. Żurek I know only from other people’s stories. And I have no clue what “kutia” is. We did have karp (carp, ugh, hate that fish) and śledzie, either as “rolmopsy” or “w śmietanie” (herring, either as rolmops or with sourcream – now, that I can eat!), zupa grzybowa (mushroom soup), barszcz czerwony (red borscht), some sort of salad (the one with veggies and eggs all chopped up into small bits and slathered in mayo), some pickles and whatever cake my mom managed not to turn into “zakalec.” Sometimes we’d have savory galaretka, which I quite liked.

Traditionally, Wigilia is supposed to be a meatless affair, but in a house full of picky eaters, fried chicken was a necessity.

There would always be an extra setting on the table – traditionally, for an unexpected guest or a lost traveler, because nobody should be spending Wigilia alone. I’d normally pile my chicken bones, or anything I didn’t want to eat, on that extra plate.

We never started the celebration with a prayer, but with me hogging the Christmas wafer (opłatek) and refusing to share with anyone. What can I say, I liked the stuff. It was crunchy and had no flavor. When we did manage to do the traditional thing and share opłatek with each other, it inevitably ended up with me collecting all the pieces and dunking them in my glass of cherry juice to make them turn red. We never sang any Christmas carols (kolędy) either, simply because nobody could remember any words past the first two lines.

Afterwards, it was time to open our presents. One time when my sister was little, our aunt dressed up as Santa Claus. And she was a very fierce Santa, too. My sister had nightmares for days to come.
And then, as a punishment for my atrocious behavior during dinner, I’d be delegated to help with doing the dishes.

We never went to the midnight mass (pasterka), choosing instead to sit in front of the TV and watch “A Christmas Carol” for the umpteenth time.

And Christmas day itself was boredom incarnate. More food, more TV, more dishes to wash. I didn’t quite mind, I could go to my room, stick headphones on my head, crawl under the blankets and not come out until the 27th.

Oh, how I miss the good old days!

PS. Regarding the hay from the last post – I asked ten Polish women (real Polish women with names like Katarzyna and Agnieszka living in places like Łomża and Słupsk) about the proper placement of hay for Wigilia and the answers I got were:
1. It can go on the table.
2. It can go under the tablecloth.
3. It can go under the table.
4. It can go into four corners of the room.
5. Save yourself some trouble and just give it directly to your dog/cat/small child, because you’ll be stuck cleaning it up afterwards anyway.

So, in other words – it doesn’t really matter where the hay goes, as long as it’s there.

Enjoy your holidays and I’ll see you again on the 27th!

Images: Wikipedia

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