For a whopping 364 days of the year, my family exists devoid of any real celebration of our ethnic heritage.
Sure it sounds sad, but you don't have to be a sociologist or an anthropologist (or any ologist, for that matter) to realize it was bound to happen. My 100% Polish grandfather married my 100% Italian grandmother; and my Polish/Italian father married my 100% Spanish mother. Then to complicate matters further, I went and married a 25% Polish, 25% French, 50% WASP woman who had ancestors on the Mayflower. (I like to joke that they actually do have an ethnic celebration: its called Thanksgiving.)
The end result of all this madness, of course, is that my wife and I now have five wonderful children who aside from their decidedly Polish last name have no real sense of their own cultural heritage.
The end result of all this madness, of course, is that my wife and I now have five wonderful children who aside from their decidedly Polish last name have no real sense of their own cultural heritage.
Except for Christmas Eve.
Christmas Eve is the one night - the one holiday tradition - that has endured throughout my lifetime...and I've come to accept it as perhaps one of the few opportunities I have left by which to teach my children about their past.
Throughout my own culturally trifurcated existence, Christmas Eve has always been a celebration both of and with the Polish side of my family. The meal, at its core, consists of fish and pierogi - because in the true Polish tradition, you are not allowed to eat meat on Christmas Eve. My father recalls that growing-up the meal specifically called for seven different types of fish, although we have heard that in Poland the actual number is proscribed to be twelve (a discrepancy he simply chalks-up to his grandmother being a relatively poor immigrant). My grandfather's favorite is sledzie (kinda sorta pronounced SLEDGE-e), which is raw pickled herring... not particularly my cup of tea, but nonetheless a Polish delicacy available in large vats on the floor of just about every Polish deli and grocery on the infamous Broad Street in New Britain.
As for the pierogi: we get the real ones - the ones hand made by the little Polish ladies over at the St. Lucian's home and filled with good stuff like cabbage or sauerkraut or sweet cheese. (With my most sincere apologies to Mrs. T: I loathe bland, Americanized supermarket-freezer pierogi filled with potato and cheese... loathe!) Since my wife is part Polish too (the only ancestry we have in common), she more than qualifies to cook-up the pierogi... and this year, she's even adding potato pancakes to the mix!
In the Polish tradition, we also break and share the oplatek (kinda sorta pronounced oh-PWAH-tek) wafers - typically three communion-esque wafers with images of the Nativity on them. As our patriarch, my grandfather begins by saying a few words and then sharing the wafer with his wife and then sequentially with each of his three children, then his grandchildren... and by that point the ritual devolves into a joyous mass of chaos in which ultimately every member of the family has shared a piece of the wafer with every other member of the family and has wished them a Merry Christmas.
And then there's the song. Mixed-in among the secular sounds of Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is the only Polish song any of us in our family will likely ever know: "Dzisiaj w Betlejem" (kinda sorta pronounced GEE-shy beth-LAY-hem). According to my grandfather, the literal translation is something to the effect of "come to Bethlehem" or "rejoice in Bethlehem" - but admittedly none of the rest of us have even the slightest clue as to what the actual words in the song mean. All that we know is that its my grandfather's song - a song I remember him singing with his brother, that was most certainly sung to them by their mother, and one unquestionably sung to her by her mother. The rest of us have heard it throughout our lives and have either picked-up the words either through rote or osmosis - and I am insistent that if my children know nothing else about their past, this song must be it.
We are hosting Christmas Eve for this first time this year - and while I do expect these next 48 hours to be a bit hectic, I am genuinely excited... because while Christmas always has been about faith and family, for me it has also always been about my Polish heritage.
Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia! (Which I'm pretty sure means Merry Christmas!)
Throughout my own culturally trifurcated existence, Christmas Eve has always been a celebration both of and with the Polish side of my family. The meal, at its core, consists of fish and pierogi - because in the true Polish tradition, you are not allowed to eat meat on Christmas Eve. My father recalls that growing-up the meal specifically called for seven different types of fish, although we have heard that in Poland the actual number is proscribed to be twelve (a discrepancy he simply chalks-up to his grandmother being a relatively poor immigrant). My grandfather's favorite is sledzie (kinda sorta pronounced SLEDGE-e), which is raw pickled herring... not particularly my cup of tea, but nonetheless a Polish delicacy available in large vats on the floor of just about every Polish deli and grocery on the infamous Broad Street in New Britain.
As for the pierogi: we get the real ones - the ones hand made by the little Polish ladies over at the St. Lucian's home and filled with good stuff like cabbage or sauerkraut or sweet cheese. (With my most sincere apologies to Mrs. T: I loathe bland, Americanized supermarket-freezer pierogi filled with potato and cheese... loathe!) Since my wife is part Polish too (the only ancestry we have in common), she more than qualifies to cook-up the pierogi... and this year, she's even adding potato pancakes to the mix!
In the Polish tradition, we also break and share the oplatek (kinda sorta pronounced oh-PWAH-tek) wafers - typically three communion-esque wafers with images of the Nativity on them. As our patriarch, my grandfather begins by saying a few words and then sharing the wafer with his wife and then sequentially with each of his three children, then his grandchildren... and by that point the ritual devolves into a joyous mass of chaos in which ultimately every member of the family has shared a piece of the wafer with every other member of the family and has wished them a Merry Christmas.
And then there's the song. Mixed-in among the secular sounds of Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is the only Polish song any of us in our family will likely ever know: "Dzisiaj w Betlejem" (kinda sorta pronounced GEE-shy beth-LAY-hem). According to my grandfather, the literal translation is something to the effect of "come to Bethlehem" or "rejoice in Bethlehem" - but admittedly none of the rest of us have even the slightest clue as to what the actual words in the song mean. All that we know is that its my grandfather's song - a song I remember him singing with his brother, that was most certainly sung to them by their mother, and one unquestionably sung to her by her mother. The rest of us have heard it throughout our lives and have either picked-up the words either through rote or osmosis - and I am insistent that if my children know nothing else about their past, this song must be it.
We are hosting Christmas Eve for this first time this year - and while I do expect these next 48 hours to be a bit hectic, I am genuinely excited... because while Christmas always has been about faith and family, for me it has also always been about my Polish heritage.
Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia! (Which I'm pretty sure means Merry Christmas!)
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