Christmas Eve at my House

"Wigilia"

Until I got married and had a family of my own,
this is how we celebrated Christmas.
Many of these customs ended when my parents died.
I will never forget & I truly miss the traditional
Polish Christmas Eve celebrations I grew up with.

"Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia
i Szczesliwego Nowego Roku!!!"

The following explanation is from:
Polishnews.com

It was the grandparents of Polish Americans over the age of 50 and usually the great-grandparents of younger Polonians who emigrated to America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, bringing with them their cherished, time-honored traditions. Through the vehicle of imagination, let us travel to the Old Country of their childhood for a look at how Boze Narodzenie was celebrated back then.

    And finally the big day, Christmas Eve, arrived. It was a day steeped in lore and legend. According to one folk belief, the first visitor entering a home on 'Wigilia' (Christmas Eve) determined the family's fortune in the year to come. A man was said to bring good luck, but a female visitor foretold misfortune. It was customary for family members to wash in a bucket of cold water brought from the nearby stream to which a silver coin or two had been added, as that was said to ensure robust health all year long. The 'all year long' theme ran through many other practices. Children were told to be especially good on Wigilia, for that is how they would be all year. Grown-ups too were on their best behavior, refrained from arguments and settled whatever debts they owed someone in the hope of being debt-free in the year to come.

    Sheaves of unthreshed grain were placed in all four corners of the cottage, straw was scattered about the floor and more straw was tied to the legs of the dinner-table. Hay was scattered on the bare table-top before it was covered with a table-cloth. The appearance of the evening's first star was the signal for the festivities to commence. The job of standing in a window and watching for it was usually assigned to young children — a great way to keep them out of the way when so many last-minute tasks had to be performed.

    Family members, all scrubbed and shaved and dressed in their holiday finery, would gather round the table. The head of the household would lead grace, then take the op3atek, make the Sign of the Cross over it and share it with the next in line, wishing them good health and God's abundant blessings.

    Only after all had shared bits of oplatek and exchanged wishes with everyone else, could the festive 'wieczerza wigilijna' (Christmas Eve supper) begin. It had to comprise an odd number of meatless dishes: five, seven, nine, eleven or more, depending on the size and wealth of the family. Typical dishes included beet, mushroom or fish soup, pickled herring, fresh fish fried, baked or poached, sauerkraut with mushrooms and/or peas, pierogi and a variety of sweet dishes incorporating poppyseeds, raisins, honey, fruit, nuts, grains and noodles.

    After supper carols were sung and many age-old folk beliefs were invoked. Unmarried girls would draw blades of hay from under the table-cloth to see what their marital prospects might be. A green strand meant she would be wedded quite soon, possible during the forthcoming pre-Lenten Mardi Gras season. A golden blade meant the girl would eventually get married but would have to patiently wait. But a dried and withered strand foretold a life of spinsterhood. In a similar vein, girls would go outdoors and listen for barking dogs. The place a dog was heard barking would be the direction from which a suitor would come. There were many other folk beliefs. On this one night a year, at midnight the water in wells turned to wine, but only those who had never sinned could taste it. Also at midnight, farm animals could speak in human voices, but anyone who actually heard them would not live to celebrate another Christmas.

    Then there was 'Pasterka' (the Shepherds' Mass at midnight), a truly uplifting experience. The next three days of Christmas — December 25, 26 and 27 — would begin with Holy Mass, followed by good food, good fellowship and visits by caroler-masqueraders with their songs of well-wishing, humorous skits and puppet shows. The idea of New Year's Eve balls and parties was a later invention. Back in our great-grandparents' day it was an evening spent at home at various fortune-telling games. Predicting the future was crucial to our ancestors. Prior to Christmas there was St Catherine's and St Andrews's Eve on which young people gathered to ponder what the future had in store for them. It has long been said that how you are on Wigilia — happy, sad, angry, satisfied, sick, healthy or whatever — is the way you will be all year long.

    Our Polish ancestors used chalk blessed in church on the Feast of the Three Kings (January 6th) to inscribe their initials and the current year — K+M+B 1999 — over the doorway to protect the household against pestilence and misfortune. They took special candles to be blessed in church on Candlemas (February 2nd) — candles believed to protect against storms and which were lighted at the bedside of the dying. That feastday ended the long, varied and eventful Polish Christmas season.

    But when all was said and done, it was Wigilia, Christmas Eve, December 24th that epitomized all that was the most significant and meaningful in Poland's Christmas celebrations. To a great extent, this has largely remained the case to date. When Poles think of Christmas, they think mainly of Wigilia. And any Polish emergency worker — policeman, fireman, powerplant attendant, emergency-room doctor, etc. — would gladly work on the December 25th, if only to be able to be with his loved ones of the 24th.