Something New

My New Year's resolution for 2012 is the same as it always is: to quit smoking... which is actually rather easy since I never have nor ever will smoke. Beyond that, I'm not a big fan of the whole resolution thing, because they're rarely genuine and they usually get tossed out the window by Groundhog Day.

But this year is different. This year I think I've come-up with a winner - an idea that speaks to the self-improving essence of New Year's resolutions while simultaneously providing additional fodder for my blog...

I'm going to try new things.

Twelve new things, to be exact. One for each month.

Keep in mind, of course, that trying new things has never been my hallmark. Think about it: I'm from New England (i.e. "The Land of Steady Habits"), I'm Polish (a population not necessarily known for their flexible, easy-going nature) and I've never lived more than thirty minutes away from the hospital in which I was born. (Hell - if you listen to my mother, even in utero I was only comfortable with what I knew since I refused to make an appearance until a full two weeks after my due date.)

Over time, though, I've come to realize that I'm just like that ugly little yellow guy with the hat in the Dr. Suess classic Green Eggs & Ham. Time and time again, someone (usually my wife) mentions something that I should try. They tell me its great, that I'd love it, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera; and just like the ugly yellow guy in the book, I go on and on about how I don't like it, how I refuse to try it, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The cycle is vicious and has continued time and time again over the course of many years... until now.

In each of the next twelve months, I am vowing to try one new thing that I have dismissed in the past as merely "green eggs and ham." It could be a food or an experience or an activity or an event - but it has to be something new, something that I've never ever done/eaten/seen/participated in before (and preferably something I can engage my wife and/or kids in as well). And when I'm done doing/eating/seeing/participating in each one, I'm going to write a blog entry about it - so come December 31, 2012 (assuming the Mayan conspiracy theorists are wrong) I will be able to look back upon a whole gamut of things that I said I'd never try but finally did.

I already have a few ideas based on things people have consistently suggested over the years:

• Trying yoga (that will probably be first)
• Running a 5K
• Eating sushi
• Getting a manicure (that one still may take some convincing)
• Seeing a foreign film
• Watching a live hockey game
• Eating like a vegetarian for a week

And again: those are just ideas. I'm actually looking for more... so if you have any, please send them along! I don't expect to fall in love with every single thing I try, but I'm also old enough to know that the failures and the "dislikes" in life are usually more important than the successes and the "likes." 

All in all, I think this could be fun - and I'm genuinely looking forward to New Year's Eve when I can look back and see all that I've done.

Let's roll! 

My Big Fat Polish Christmas

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.

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!)