Our last Christmas in Poland was ten years ago. I could probably dig through some pictures and find shots from that day. There would be a lot that’s the same. K of course would be there, as would the compote, fish dish and some sort of soup — likely the same soup we served this evening.
There would have been similar pictures of preparation: of ironing, of setting the table, of getting kids ready.
There would possibly have been pictures of someone — K’s father? her mother? — reading the gospel passage about the nativity before dinner.
There would have been pictures of a grandchild (K’s nephew W) cuddling with babcia.
The changes, of course, would be in the people involved. Some present this evening would be absent from pictures of our last wigilia in Poland; some present then are absent from pictures of this evening. Some of the pictures could be recreated with older versions of the photo’s subjects while others can’t occur again in this world.
Certainly that is the draw of traditions: while the world is changing around us, while we ourselves are changing, there are a few things that remain constant, a few things we can count on.
There’s probably some psychological term for this need we have to organize our lives around traditions. Perhaps more than one because it seems that’s what obsessive-compulsive disorder is: taking “traditions” to the extreme. Maybe that’s what people mean when they say we’re all a little OCD in our own special ways.
Wigilia could certainly provide plenty of material for someone excessively obsessed with order as he sees it to get bent out of shape about. K and I used to be a little like that. Perhaps K more, since she did almost all the work and always had this image in her head of what it was all supposed to be like, sort of a Platonic form of the perfect wigilia dinner.
There was a time when, perhaps, our lack of authentic opłatki (how did that happen?!) might have been more emotionally problematic for one of us, or both. Perhaps, or maybe not. It’s hard to tell looking back. But yesterday, looking in the cookie and cracker section of the local grocery story, I found it amusing that I was looking for a substitute for something I could have easily found ten years ago at any number of stores.
Tonight, though, it wasn’t about the food, or the opłatki, or the compote, or the perfectly ironed table cloth, or the piles of baked goods, or even the gifts.
Tonight, it was about the little flashes of joy that the children experienced. L was thrilled, as always, with barszcz. (Not entirely — she prefers the Ukranian variety, made without the fermented beets that give wigilia barszcz its slight kick) The Boy was overjoyed that Santa had brought, as E had expressed countless times, a police car for him.
And everyone was happy about the deserts — that’s a tradition worth being OCD about.
Previous Years
https://matchingtracksuits.com/2010/12/25/wigilia-2010/