Virtual Advent Tour 2009 -Christmas Eve Dinner

I was so excited about the Virtual Advent Tour that when I joined I asked to post twice, not once during the advent. In my first post I wrote about what advent meant to me when I was a kid. Today, on Christmas Eve, I will write about how my family celebrates this very special day.

Ever since I can remember, Christmas Eve has always been just as important as Christmas Day. The Christmas Eve dinner is to us what Thanksgiving dinner is to most of Americans, the time for the whole family to get together, to give thanks for the passing year's blessings and to also pray for what the next year's bringing.

Yes, you read that right, I mentioned last year and new year. That's because, as I mentioned in my first Advent Tour post, my family observed the laws of Roman Catholic church and Christmas Eve ends the liturgical year and begins the new year.

This very special night is full of anticipation, happiness and joyous thoughts as we wait for the birth of Jesus, the Savior. All day long everyone gets involved in preparing the house for the big dinner which usually takes place where the oldest family member lives. In my case, it was the house of my maternal grandparents and my grandma was the person in charge.

Let's concentrate on what we have for dinner first. There always have to be 12 dishes and the only meat allowed is fish. Everything else is non-meat. The tradition is for everyone to at least try, if not eat the full plates, every single dish or food that's served, because they all have a purpose. For instance, we eat a little bit of garlic to be outspoken for the next year or peas and cabbage for the strength (usually physical health). There is also no alcohol drinking until the Christmas Day. The thing that I have always thought to be the most important is that there is always an extra seat, with extra plate reserved for whoever might wonder in on this special night, a hungry, homeless person, someone who is lonely, a lost wanderer or maybe even a ghost of a family member who passed away and didn't find his/her way to the other world yet.

When do we start the dinner, you might ask? Usually the children go outside and wait for the first star to appear in the sky. It is a symbol of the Bethlehem Star that led the Three Wise Men to the manger where Jesus was born. When the star is up the kids all run back to the house yelling with excitement that it's time to start the dinner. I remember that it was very very exciting for me to stand outside and look up in the sky. Believe it or not, I don't ever remember a Christmas Eve where there was no star.

We all start the dinner with prayer, we then share Holy Wafer with one another wishing everyone all the best for the next year. It always very touching for me because no matter what the disagreements might have been throughout the year, on that one night we put them all away and try to start anew with only good wishes in our hearts.

The most exciting thing for me had always been the time after dinner when only children were allowed to go outside in a barn or stable (my grandparents were farmers and had all kinds of animals, sheep, cows, pigs, chickens) and listen to the animals try to speak in human tongue. We never did catch the animal do just that :) but we were children & children never give up nor disbelieve, so no matter that on one Christmas Eve we didn't hear animals talk because we would always return every year having faith that because the whole night was magical we might get lucky that time. Just because we didn't witness it, didn't mean it wasn't happening.

Last but not least, because I grew up in times where there was little to no money and really not much to buy in the stores either, even if one did have money (communism and socialism in Poland ended when I was 12 years old, so I remember a lot from that horrible time), there were no presents under the Christmas tree. And it was completely fine with the children, because we grew up truly believing that Christmas is not about the presents at all. As kids, we never felt at a disadvantage because we got no presents. Christmas Eve was a special, magical night filled with joy and happiness.

Virtual Advent Tour 2009 - for kids, it's presents' time twice this month.

Today in Poland, children wake up to presents from St. Nicholas (Święty Mikołaj). I am writing about this particular country because I am a native of it and have only been living in the U.S for 8 years. I figured I would talk about two aspects of Advent and Christmas that are near & dear to me: tradition and religion.

Growing up, the best time of the year (right after summer vacation, of course) was always the whole month of December. I was raised in a devout Roman Catholic family and it had always been evident in how we celebrated holidays. And trust me we, kids had a lot of fun despite what some might think when 'devout Catholic' is mentioned. Anyway, here's the layout of what we did during the advent.

It all begins on November 30th when we celebrate the St. Andrew's day (Andrzejki - un'djeykee). It is the last day before the advent and the last day before Christmas to dance, drink (yes, adults have some crazy parties then), fool around and just be simply crazy. There is also a lot of pagan mystique in a form of fortune-telling, esp. regarding love, marriage and relationships (it's no surprise that pagan practices are used in Catholic traditions and to be honest with you I, together with other children, had always known that Polish tradition had a lot of pagan elements in it from the times before we had become a Christian country). For instance, people melt wax and pour it into cold water to see the shadows the melted wax makes on the walls - different shapes mean different things for the future and a lot of times it's just fun trying to figure out what your future holds. Anyway, I am digressing. St. Andrew's day, or rather night, is the time of celebration and fun because on December 1st the advent begins and lasts for 24 days, until first day of Christmas (the strike of midnight to be precise). Advent is the time of calm, quiet days when we would spend a lot of time praying and anticipating the birth of Jesus. Admittedly, it may seem a little strict for people who have never practiced it but it really wasn't overly so for us kids. We couldn't play any loud music, there were no parties, no dancing, no major celebrations such as weddings, christenings and such. It sometimes did seem a little tough but it made the celebration of Christmas that much more festive and happier.

The only little break for children is December 6th, Mikołajki (meekowaykee) - St. Nicholas' Day. This is the day (more specifically night of Dec. 5 & 6) when Santa Claus comes to children and leaves them presents under pillows, under beds or somewhere hidden. I remember this day to be tons of fun even though we didn't really get crazy gifts kids do nowadays (no Wii's, laptop computers and such). But as children we were on our best behavior for about three months prior to the St. Nicholas day because we truly believed that otherwise we would get coal or a rod instead of a present.

Today I am a mom, I live in a different country, different culture and I do not celebrate Mikołajki. My daughter is fully Americanized and even though she does speak Polish and I know she would love to get gifts twice this month, the whole thing just wouldn't have the same charm mainly because we (I mean my closest family) are not such orthodox Catholics. We do continue the Christmas Eve tradition though but I will talk about this one in another post (on Dec. 24).

For more talk about holidays, please visit Melissa @ Book Nut, Chris @ Stuff As Dreams Are Made On & Stephanie @ Stephanie's Confessions of a Bookaholic.

2009 Virtual Advent Tour

Kailana from The Written Word and Marg from Reading Adventures put together another round of Virtual Advent Tour. The gist of it is:

Each day anyone who wants to participate takes turns sharing a treat with our friends here in blogland. For example it could be something about your family traditions, recipes, your country's holiday traditions, or a favourite Christmas memory, movie, book, song...anything you like. Even if you don't celebrate Christmas we would like to hear about what your family does during the holiday season, whether it be celebrating Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or whatever it is that you do during this time.

I found out about this event from BethFishReads' post "Getting Involved In The Blogging Community" about all the holiday events going around the blogosphere. The post is a lot of help and a fantastic tool that makes it possible for bloggers to know about all kinds neat December happenings.

I didn't get a chance to participate in it last year but I am very happy and excited to make up for it this year. So happy in fact that I will be posting twice, on Dec. 6th & Dec. 24th. I think that the tour is a grand idea and will be impatiently waiting to read evrybody else's posts because the whole world, each family's traditions are full of wonders and I like to know as much about it as possible. Somehow I feel this knowledge will make me richer and I can maybe even incorporate some of it into my own.

The tour is going on from December 1st to December 24th and there are tons of bloggers participating. If you are as excited and curious about holidays in other homes, you can find a list and dates of all bloggers writing about their own traditions right here.