Christmas in Poland
Oh boy! Where to start with Christmas in Poland? Do we start with the fact that it involves keeping a live carp in your family’s bathtub until the lady of the house kills it for the Christmas Eve feast? Or do we start with the fact that their caroling troupes feature a goat, a devil, a soldier, a Jew, a grim reaper, and a “fertility horse”? Or should we start with the fact that their Christmas Eve dinner is a twelve-course affair in which you aren’t allowed to put down your spoon? Needless to say, we had our hands full (and not just with our spoon 😉 ) celebrating Christmas in Poland!
Two years ago, I thought we were crazy for attempting a seven-course Christmas feast for the Feast of Seven Fishes. This year, I have no doubt we are absolutely bonkers for attempting to celebrate a twelve-course Polish Wigilia feast on a weeknight. But when you’re celebrating Christmas in Poland, you simply have to do what the locals do. So, we took their traditions to heart and followed them as closely as possible.
The preparation is extensive, involving not just food but also symbolic decorations. The house must be thoroughly cleaned, and the dinner table is set with a thin layer of hay under a white tablecloth to remember Jesus in the manger. An empty place setting is symbolically left at the table for the Baby Jesus, a lonely wanderer in need of food, or a deceased relative who might like to share the meal.
One of our favorite elements is that dinner and festivities can’t begin until the first star appears in the night sky, symbolizing the Star of Bethlehem. This star is lovingly called “the little star” or Gwiazdka (the female counterpart to St. Nicholas). On Christmas Eve, children watch the sky anxiously, hoping to be the first to cry out, "The star has come!" And so we did our best to spot the first star in the sky in the middle of a metropolitan city.
And then, the meal began. Traditionally, there is no meat (aside from fish), no dairy, and only local Polish foods. Oh, and did we mention there are twelve dishes, representing the twelve apostles? You’re expected to try every dish and not put your spoon down during the often two-hour-long meal. To make it manageable, we invited our Lifegroup friends to help us cover the dozen dishes and add a whole lot of extra fun to the evening.
We tried to stay as true as possible to the authenticity of the meal and the dishes. The menu began with breaking the traditional oplatek wafer and then progressed into rye bread, herring, dried mushroom soup, vegetable salad, and sauerkraut salad before really hitting stride with beet broth borsch with mushroom dumplings, poppy seed noodles, and pierogis with mushrooms.
The carp is often the highlight of the meal and traditionally bought alive and kept in the bathtub until the lady of the house prepares it—but that level of authenticity was a bit too much for us. So we opted for the often alternative fish option of gefilte fish (balls of carp). For dessert, we enjoyed makowiec (poppy seed bread) and kuciukai (biscuits soaked in poppy seed milk) along with kompot z suszu (dried fruit compote). And that makes twelve dishes!
After a full day(s) of cooking and tidying, we finally called the Wigilia feast complete. As we wound down listening to the album “A Koledy Evening with Stephen Kaminski”, we made a little Polish nightcap of krupnik (honey spiced vodka) and had some fun making traditional Polish straw stars.
Phew! That was a whirlwind to type, let alone to prepare for and pull off. But it was a blast to make come to life and live a traditional Polish Christmas Eve. We didn’t even mention all the other amazing things about Christmas in Poland, like animals talking at midnight, upside-down Christmas trees, the caroling horse of fertility, the world-famous kraków szopki nativity scenes, the six different gift bringers from across the country (ranging from Santa Claus to Star Man to Little Baby Jesus to Grandfather Frost), or their handblown glass ornaments. And of course, those “koledy” caroling troupes featuring a goat, a devil, a soldier, a Jew, and a grim reaper. You'll just have to look into all those things on your own.
Merry Christmas! Wesołych Świąt!
ACTIVITIES:
"Welcome to NORTH POLe-AND" Sign"
Wiglie Christmas Eve Dinner / Star Spotting
FOOD & DRINK MENU:
Rye Bread
Herring
Gefilte Fish
Poppy Seed Noodles
INTERESTING READS & CONTEXT:
