Boże Narodzenia

I decided to stay in Poland for Christmas and New Year Eve. It would be a perfect occasion to know in practice how these events are celebrated in Poland, which would certainely differ from countries...

I was invited to celebrate Christmas with the family of my friend Ela, but also by many other families, as it is unconceivable in Poland to let someone alone during Christmas time, esp. a foreigner far from his country and family. Besides people hardly understood that I wanted to spend Christmas far from my family, as in Poland during this period, all the Poles living and working abroad come back to their country.

In Poland, Christmas is a big event.. A big religious event of course, but also a big commercial and food event :-). In that period, supermarkets and shops are literally crowded, everybody being a lot of food and presents. The last day before Christmas, the parking of the supermarkets were so packed and you had to queue a long time to pass at the cashier!

Of course, each house is decorated with a Christmas tree and everybody is very excited about this event.

Christmas lasts 3 days. It begins on the 24th of December with a dinner. Before eating, there is a tradition taht everybody may have in his hands a piece of host/wafer and you may do your greetings to other people, cuting and eating a piece of their wafer. You do it till you finish your wafer. The first time I did it, I didn't know anything about it and I took a big wafer... Never more I will do it as during a long time, I was greeted by people. I could understand but it was quick and I didn't know what to reply except "Wszystkiego najlepszego" (All the best). It was a bit embarassing.

For the dinner of the 24th December, the tradition imposes that you may not eat meat nor drink alcohol. Priority is given to natural and home-made products. There may be 12 dishes. As for us, we were four and the dinner at 5pm began with a wild-mushrooms soup with noodles, then we slowly passed to the other dishes, sometimes having cakes between the dishes. Secondly we ate pierogi with cabbage and mushrooms, in a butter sauce, and then carp. Carp is the very traditional Christmas fish. A Christmas in Poland without carp is not a real Christmas :-). There are different ways to cook the carp, but there we simply breaded and fired the pieces of carp, then adding butter at the end on the crust.

Polish cuisine is quite very fat and using a lot of oil and frying almost everything. Asking my friends, I understand that fishes are almost always smazone (breaded and fried). I should introduced the concepts of "papilotte" or simply grilled fish :-)

But anyway carp was very good :-), and after these many pierogi and slices of carp, we stopped eating at that stage as we were yet very full, even if it was still very early... We ended the evening speaking and watching TV.

And before the dinner, we opened our gift. They offered me a czapka (bonnet, hat) and a pair of socks. Poles were always afraid that I could be sick and get a cold in Poland, because "To jest zimno" (it's cold). But finally I never got very cold and anyway I am lucky as I never get sick. But they were always moralizing me that I should wear hotter shoes, hotter coat, etc.. and for Christmas I was offered two bonnets :-). I offered to Ela a book of French cuisine, in French, to her Mum a lipstick and to her aunt some tea leaves.

On the 2nd day, we woke up quite last :-(. We had breakfast, and as normally in Poland, esp. in comparison with Western Europe countries, it was a big breakfast, a special Christmas one. We ate sledzie z cebula i smietana (herrings with onions and cream), salatka z majonezem (vegetable salad with mayonnaise), wedliny (ham), sos chrzanowy (horseradish sauce), and ciastka (cakes), along with herbata z cytryna (lemon tea).

After that we went for a spacer (walk) in the city. As it was Christmas, we wanted to see the different szutki (creches) in the churches, particularly the main-one in the city, close to the cathedral, with alive animals. So, we went to two different churches and to this main one. There was alot of people.

Then we headed back to home where, 10mn after your arrival, we were already at the table, ready to eat. On this day, meat was allowed, so we ate bigos and they, later on, we prepared some more carp. Alcohol also was allowed but all shops were closed so we had come back from my flat the only souvenir I had brought back from Ukraine: a bottle of Nemiroff vodka, a spicy vodka with peppers and honey,.. and it was really spicy!

On the last day, the day was quite similar: same late breakfast, with herrings which had be frozen during the night on the balcony, and soon after a lunch: meat and kluszki in a white vegetables sauce

Then Christmas was unfortunately already over.