12 Wonderful Polish Traditions for Christmas

Some of the fondest memories from my birth country are the Polish traditions for Christmas. Living in the usually sunny California now, I miss it every year: the cooler weather and the snow, all the great traditions, and of course, the food!

But this crazy year 2020, what I miss the most is seeing my people, my family, my friends. Since we all have been pretty much blocked from traveling, what can I do but try to recreate some of the magic of Polish Christmas in my new home country.

Christmas in Poland – still an overwhelmingly Catholic country – is a really big deal, filled with wonderful traditions. Houses are cleaned up for weeks ahead, menus are planned, food is bought and prepared. The most important day of the season by far is Christmas Eve.

Polish Christmas Eve

Some of the most important Polish traditions for Christmas are centered around this special evening. On December 24th, the appearance of the first star on the sky marks the beginning of one of the most beautiful evenings in the year. Kids sit at the windows or walk out onto balconies as soon as it gets dark (which in Poland in December is around 5 PM), and look out for that first star on the wintery sky.

In the old Polish Christmas tradition, but rarely held today, the entire day of fasting ends with a prayer, the sharing of the Christmas wafer, and wishes of good luck. After that, supper is served – and although it is meant to be a fasting meal, in many cases it will likely lead to heavy overeating.

Christmas wafer

Even though I’ve been in the USA for 28 years now, my family is still sending me a Christmas wafer every year. The wafer is the same as the wafer used for communion. But for Christmas Eve it is called Oplatek. They are brought to every household, that welcomes them, by a priest or an official from the parish church, and they are saved for the Christmas eve meal. Before everyone sits down to eat, every person takes one wafer and walks from person to person present and wishes for a good future are exchanged.

When I first brought this tradition to my in-law family, there were a lot of emotions related to it. It is really a different thing to with everyone around the table a generic Merry Christmas, and a different one to find words that pertain to each person specifically. It becomes a nice exercise of gratitude, compassion, and shared love.

12 Course Christmas Eve Dinner

The tradition says that there must be exactly 12 dishes during the Christmas Eve dinner (including desserts and one specific drink) on the table and everyone has to try every each of them. If you do try everything, the whole year (12 months) is going to be happy and successful for you!

“Twelve referred to the number of the Apostles and months of the year. Strength and luck were to be guaranteed by tasting each of the dishes.”

culture.pl

Additionally, we put a bit of straw and hay under the table cloth (to remind of the manger where Jesus was supposedly born), and we leave one seat at the table empty and set for a surprise guest (if anyone would knock on the door).

Number 1 and 2 – Soups

The dinner starts with a soup. The most common choice is clear beetroot soup served alone or with small dumplings stuffed with cabbage and mushroom. (Other options are fish soup or wild mushroom soup.)

In my home, my mom always served two soup (we love soups and my mom cooks the best soups out there!): the clear beet soup and wild mushroom soup (for this soup, my family forages for mushrooms in the fall, dries them and saves them for a number of Christmas dishes).

The main purpose of the soup is to start the digestion process and allow you to eat more later. You have to pace yourself; you need to eat 11 more dishes that evening!

Christmas Fish Dishes

Christmas Eve is a “fasting” day, but the dinner is a memorable feast. Fasting here means staying away from meat and animal fat, but it doesn’t include seafood. And so, the abundance of fish reflects the observance of abstinence from meat until the feast of Christmas Day itself.

The biggest star of the evening is the humble carp. This fish is not eaten in Poland on any other occasion but for some reason, it became Christmas Eve staple. 

I remember from my childhood, my parents buying the fish a few days in advance, live, and keeping them in our bathtub! It was weird but the killing of the fish right before the Christmas Eve dinner was even weirder. You had to hit the poor carp in the head while it was still alive. I guess the belief was that if the fish dies on its own, it won’t be fresh anymore.

This custom died out with the end of communism and thankfully now carps are sold dead and filleted. That saves a lot of mess (fishy bathtub, dead fish entrails in the kitchen, scales all over the floor). But it also means the end of one funny tradition, which I will mention below.

In our home, the carp was prepared and served in two ways:

3. Breaded and deep-fried carp

4. Carp terrine-style

5. Herring

We also eat a lot of herring during the Christmas season and it starts during Christmas Eve. Herring has been a very abundant fish in Europe, breeding freely in the Baltic, the North Sea, and the Atlantic, and even though the number of the fish in the seas has been dwindling, it is still a staple in Northern European diets. In Poland it is eaten smoked, fried, or prepared with apples and dill pickles. In my childhood home, it was served oil with plenty of onions and bread.

6. Christmas pierogis

My favorite part of the Christmas Eve dinner is without a doubt pierogis with sauerkraut and wild mushroom filling. They are an indispensable part of the Christmas Eve supper in all parts of Poland. They have been known in Poland since the 13th century and were probably brought over from the Far East. In the past, they were cooked exclusively for holidays.

My mom always made the pierogi dough from scratch, it was the softest and the tastiest thing ever, no fancy restaurant, nothing came even close to her mastery. Pierogis are boiled and then warmed up once more by sautéing in olive oil with onion. Simply delicious!

7. Poppyseed cake (makowiec).

A shortbread crust base is topped with poppy seed, honey, raisings, and nuts mixture, rolled up, baked, and then glazed. Yummy!

8. Cheesecake

Somebody must have forgotten that cheese is made from milk, and hence it is from an animal product.

Baking the cheesecake has always been my dad’s prerogative. He would macerate the farmer’s cheese for hours, making it just right, stuffing it with rum-soaked raisins, and baking with eggs and sugar into a fluffy, one of a kind, Polish-style cheesecake.

9. Dried fruit compote

This dish cannot be absent from any Christmas Eve dinner table in Poland, although in some parts of the country it takes on the form of dried fruit soup. Dried apples, plums, pears, and apricots, spiced up with cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, and sometimes almonds, are soaked with water and served for better digestion.

10. Gingerbread or other Christmas style cookies

Even though they are not much different than cookies in other countries, I still include them in my list of Polish traditions for Christmas. One memorable type from my childhood were the soft and chewy, homemade gingerbread cookies. We, the kids, got them packaged with oranges and nuts in large goodie bags that would last for several days of eating.

11. Fruit

In my childhood days, drying the communist era, Christmas was the only time, we could get some delicacies such as oranges or bananas. So, it was a truly special treat and considered one of the 12 dishes of Christmas Eve.

12. Nuts

Walnuts and hazelnuts are the most popular. They are bought whole with shells and opened with a nutcracker at the table.

Christmas Presents

After devouring the twelve dishes, it’s time for present unwrapping.

Sometimes, parents hire someone to dress up as Santa and come after dinner with a sack full of presents. Other times, kids are distracted and told that Santa just dropped by and left the presents under the Christmas tree – decorated with wonderful handmade glass ornaments (Poland is famous for some of the most beautiful ornaments), garlands, and colorful lights.

All presents are unpacked on Christmas Eve presents, which are placed under the tree – an ongoing issue in my now American family. We usually open one present on Christmas Eve, and then open the rest according to the American tradition, on Christmas Day.

Christmas Related Superstitions

Some of the still cherished Polish traditions for Christmas are related to old superstitions. Christmas in was considered a very prophetic day, which helps explain a number of such superstitions.

• it was believed that crying on Christmas Eve meant crying until next Christmas.
• it was also believed that the future could be predicted using a blade of grass from under a tablecloth – a green one meant good luck, a blackened one –bad luck.
• there is a custom of putting a carp’s scale into one’s wallet. Now, with carps being bought filleted and skinless, this tradition might be dying out. Whoever still believes it, it is supposed to ensure wealth for the entire year.
• most importantly, it is also said that animals could talk at a certain moment during Christmas Eve. (This, btw, never worked for any of our home’s furry friends 🙂

Want to read more about Polish traditions for Christmas? Head over to this site.

Do you celebrate Christmas? How are you celebrating Christmas Eve? I’d love to hear! Drop me a note.

xoxo

Joanna