Wigilia - Polish Christmas Eve

Today is the sacred day of Christmas. But wait Anna, Christmas was a month ago. I am about a month behind in my blog so that makes sense.

My Ciocia spent the day in the kitchen and I spent an hour on the phone talking to Mum and my brother. Christmas Eve here is called Wigilia (Vigilia) and this is when Polish people celebrate Christmas. We set the table with a white table cloth (this symbolises something) and put hay underneath the table cloth and a little on top (I think this symbolises baby Jesus’s manger). Most importantly, there’s always an extra place set at the table for a welcome guest and also for those people who can’t be with us.

Back in the day, the tradition was to buy a live carp (fish) and put it in the bath tub, then kill it for the Christmas dinner. I don’t know who still does this, but we bought ours at the local supermarket (live), the man killed it for us and we took it home. The first time I walked in to the supermarket and saw live fish swimming around in the tank was weird. Imagine walking into Coles or Woollies and there’s a fish tank with carp jammed in all flapping about, doing whatever it is that fish do. Anyway, carp is symbolic of something too and while we don’t eat meat on Christmas Eve, white fish is a must.

Barszcz (beetroot soup) is the Christmas soup and also pierogi (dumplings) are a necessity. There are twelve courses altogether, I think to represent the twelve apostles? Clearly, I am well versed in the meaning of Polish Christmas.

We drank a couple bottles of wine, opened presents and ate Christmas cakes (gingerbread, poppyseed cake and baked cheesecake). All in all, a fun Polish Christmas night. It was very different from the normal hot Australian night Christmas with my Mum and my brothers but it was exciting to be in a country where celebrating on Christmas Eve is the norm!