Christmas in Poland

Following on from yesterday post about traditions in Iceland...

Heres a piece from Krystian from Zezuzulla (Great Brand we're stocking) about their traditions...

Christmas is something that changed a lot in Poland in the last three decades.

30 years ago it was all about tradition, family, religion, food and gifts.For kids - of course in the opposite manner: gifts, food, family and tradition plus religion, eventually.

Yeah, that didn't change much, actually.

There was 12 main meals - and plenty of everything.
Dumplings with sour cabbage and mushrooms, carp, bread, buckwheat with fruit stew, herrings, boiled potatoes, vegetable salad with mayonnaise, beetroot soup with ravioli (called small-ears in Poland actually), beaten sour cabbage with peas, poppy-seed cake, cheesecake and drop scones.Of course, these list might vary, depends on the region and home-dwellers tastes.Everything was self-made from backstreet goods that all the neighbours shared.
There was snow almost every year and everyone had the same Christmas tree decorations.
Preparations took forever - there was no time to do this, but everybody was cleaning windows in the middle of the winter, just to show that they care.The homes were full of people, feasting together, at least this one time a year, for good.
Nobody sits at the table before the first star has been shown.After that, the eldest host read a passage from the Bible and give permission to start the dinner.When it was finished, everyone shared communion wafer and give regards to each other individually.
There were also some another interesting properties of communion wafer - it was only time when animals could eat it and after that, it was believed that they'll be able to speak human language just that one night.
Then, at last, there was the opening of the gifts and a bit later - for those that were interested - midnight Mass in a church.


Now Christmas is not very alike.
There is little (if there is at all) religion in it and less food and tradition.People treat it rather as a possibility for taking a break from their fast-paced lives and want to slow down and relax.Some of them go on vacations, some of them visit families, but there are also many that just want to have a few slow days with their closest loved ones.
It's more intimate and less spectacular than 30 years ago.
Nobody wants to throw out good food, so 12 meal-dinners are not so very often in this case either.But there must be at least: beetroot soup with ravioli, herrings, vegetable salad with mayonnaise and poppy-seed cake.
People are waiting for the first star to sit to table, but religious implications are much more scarce than some time ago.
The overall atmosphere is also much more loose, and, because of that, gifts are unwrapped much faster.After Christmas Eve people are visiting their friends and family with a quiet few-people meetings.

In short - the Christmases are easier nowadays.

In modern Polish Christmas, family is still in the centre of the event, but oriented more on children and according to their needs.

That's very cool about it, because those little fellows are what the humanity will become soon.
And that's why making it all for them really matters.

Christmas With Imaginary Friends

As Christmas Eve approaches at a terrifying speed... 

I asked my lovely friend Mia to share her slightly terrifying Christmas traditions all the way from Iceland... 
Mia Olsen currently lives in Denmark, shares my passion for fabulous Scandi clobber... Vegetarian food and is amazeballs X 

Christmas with Imaginary Friends

I come from a country that hardly anyone lives in, everyone in Iceland could move to Bristol and we’d still have room for guests! We got so lonely over there, we made up imaginary friends! Tales about elves and fairies called Huldufólk are still very popular and one Santa wasn’t enough so we had to have 13. Just so we can talk about something besides the weather!

My customs are often thought of as a novelty and some find them quirky. I find them normal and just a tad tedious. Who has to find those 13 gifts the Yule Lads bring? It sure isn’t their mother Grýla. 

Grýla and her third husband Leppalúði, are the Yule Lads parents — the scariest ogres ever known. They aren’t really into the whole attachment parenting thing but she’s got the ability to find kids that have misbehaved during the year and then EATS them! Yeah, her favourite snack is a stew of naughty kids — legend has it she has an insatiable appetite! Charming and Christmassy right?

So it’s not surprising the Yule Lads turned out the way they did. The original stories will have you believe that they were a mischievous bunch that caused havoc when they came over, stealing food and spying on the kids so they could report back to dear mummy. So much so that there was a public decree in 1746 that banned parents from frightening their children with monsters and fiends like the Yule Lads. Since then they’ve started to behave a little better and have now started to look like the regular Santa Clause. 

They still carry their characteristic names like Sheep-Cote Clod, Window Peeper and Door Sniffer (I’m not making this up!). They are much nicer to the children now and to make up for the centuries long tyranny, have started to put little gifts in their shoes in stead of stealing and pestering. Children now put their — often muddy — shoes on the windowsill and wait for little tokens, to ease the suspense for Christmas Eve. 

The nights are long up north so we moved the whole celebration of Christmas to Christmas Eve, but we do everything somewhat in reverse and only start the festivities when the clocks strike 18. By then everyone has had a christmas bath — thankfully we have unlimited access to warm water and don’t have to rely on boilers! We dress up in at least one item of new clothing or Grýla’s pet the Yule Cat comes by and eats you!

Then we hurriedly eat the food we’ve spent the whole day preparing, hoping the electricity doesn’t go out as every single stove in Iceland is turned on at that exact moment. The biggest difference I find is the desert. We don’t have anything close to a Christmas pudding, I grew up with canned fruit cocktail, ice cream and a slap of whipped cream! A national favourite! 

After eating all the food we open the presents, my personal favourite part of the day! By late evening you can usually find us curled up on the sofa reading the many books normally found under our own carefully picked and cut tree! Books are such a popular item during the holidays it’s called “Jólabókaflóð” or Christmas Book Flood. New books are almost only published during this season.

Eat or be eaten seems to the common theme with Icelandic Christmas traditions. I know I like to play it safe and always make sure we all get something new!

Gleðileg Jól!

Christmas Giveaway!

Win a Maxomorra Christmas Moose apron and a Corby Tindersticks Ralph Raddish soft toy... Ralph likes Science and Ready salted Crisps!... A man after my own heart... Click below to enter... X

Mobile Device Entry!



a Rafflecopter giveaway

One Sunday afternoon...

This time of year makes me think about my childhood and the traditions we had, although I'm sure they wern't classed as traditions by my parents, it was just the way things happened...

Thinking back, we did the same things for Christmas each year, so I'm going to call them traditions...

There wern't very many of them but one of the ones I remember clearly and fondly is choosing the Christmas tree...

This was my job, no one else was allowed to do it but me... My dad and I would go to a very specific farm ( the one we bought big bags of potatoes from) it would always be a Sunday afternoon in December, I remember the drive there, down the country lanes and round the final corner and the little car park opposite the farm, I couldn't wait to pick the Christmas tree...

We always had a real tree back then, the trees were lined up down the middle of the yard bunched against each other with some leaning against the cowshed (they were never the good ones)...

It would always be light as we arrived and dark and cold when we left, every year would be the same, I would scan the line of trees then inspect every tree one by one, pull it out look at it, put it back... It would take hours my dad would leave me to it, helping me if a tree was too heavy... Every year, the farmer would try and help and suggest a tree, but no I had to do it myself till I found the perfect tree and I always knew when I'd found it...

My dad would then tie it to the roof rack and off we would go home...

It was always so exciting to choose the tree the start of Christmas... my mum would be at home sorting the tree decorations out and we had a lot of them, all different shapes, sizes and colours non of this matching business some glass, plastic, homemade, glittery, paper and she always made the most amazing fairy out of an old Sindy doll, crepe paper, glitter and tinfoil... I loved the fairy couldn't wait for her to make it... She used to make it once we'd gone to bed and I came down in the morning to a beautiful tree fairy...

Once we got home the tree would be stood up in the garage over night in a bucket of water so it's branches would fall and it would regain it's shape...

I was always impatient at this bit... I wanted the tree up so badly so I could decorate it... Whilst I was at school the next day my dad would bring the tree in, put it in place and put the lights on ready so I could decorate it after school... My mum always put the fairy on top, cotton wool round the base & on some branches and a nativity scene out... A quick spray with fake snow stuff...

The rest was mine all mine and I loved it... All the glittery, shiny baubles, homemade pinecone ornaments and crackers... 

Waiting for the presents to go underneath! 

Christmas lights switched on every morning, I loved Christmas back then, not sure when I became so jaded about it all?... 

Maybe when my mum worked on the district and used to make extra food for the elderly people who never realised it was Christmas (hmmmm... That's possibly a whole other story!) 

Christmas then was good, the tree was amazing, now I have a small, fake tree on a shelf!... Meh!... But I still love the lights at Christmas... X