Boxing Day 2021
christmas
Christmas Day 2021
Wigilia 2021
Previous Years
Wigilia 2001
Wigilia 2002
Wigilia 2003
Wigilia 2004
Wigilia 2005
Wigilia 2006
Wigilia 2007
Wigilia 2008
Wigilia 2009
https://matchingtracksuits.com/2010/12/25/wigilia-2010/
Wigilia 2011
Wigilia 2012
Wigilia 2013
Wigilia 2014
Wigilia 2015
Wigilia 2016
Wigilia 2017
Wigilia 2018
Wigilia 2019
Wigilia 2020
Wigilia Eve 2021
The girls did some baking — peppermint chocolate chip cookies, which are absolutely amazing.
The neighbors did some caroling.
And I did some Photoshopping.
More Prep
Opłatek 2021
Jasełka 2021
It was to be his biggest performance yet: the Boy was set to play “Przybieżeli do Betlejem” on his guitar for this year’s jasełka performance.
His guitar teacher had been working with him on the piece; he’d been practicing it at home (with some encouragement, it must be admitted); he was ready.
And then the amp would not cooperate. No sound. At all. The adults thought fast, put a mic in front of the guitar, and the Boy was off. He was disappointed, but pleased with not giving up.
“It’s what Tommy would have done,” I reminded him, referring to our hero Tommy Emmanuel, who plays no matter what. Technical difficulties? Guitar issues? Venue problems? Nothing stops Tommy.
“Yeah, I guess.”
Previous Years
Jaselka 2019
Jase?ka 2017
Jase?ka 2016
Jase?ka 2015
Six and Jaselka
Jase?ka 2013
Jase?ka
Performance
Jase?ka
First Preparation
The beets are starting to work their fermentation magic for barszcz z uszkami. And the first baking (though not strictly for Christmas) is done.
Christmas Card
K wouldn’t let me publish it until we had sent out some of the cards.
First Steps
Mikołaj 2021
Lights at Night
Hanging the Lights
It’s been a few years since we put up any lights for Christmas. I really can’t remember the last time we did it — three years ago? Four?
We put the lights around the crape myrtles a couple of years ago, but that was a bad idea — we never took them down, and the year’s worth of sun and heat and rain predictably destroyed them.
I think last year we just kept putting it off, and before we knew it, it was too close to Christmas to make it worth our time.
“This one works…this one works…oh here’s one that’s out…”
But this year we got the tree up earlier than ever, so what were we to do on a cloudy Sunday afternoon?
Of course, the Boy was eager to help. He loves going into the crawl space with me, but the roof?
Are you kidding? What more could a nine-year-old boy want than to spend some time on the roof?
And a little bit of football time with Mama to boot? What a perfect afternoon!
Tree 2021
The earliest we’ve ever gotten a tree.
We slide out of the Thanksgiving season right into Christmas.
The End of the Season
Part of it was laziness, but we’ll chalk it up to Polishness: we finally took down our Christmas tree today. We’d been meaning to do it for a couple of weeks, but we didn’t adequately work it into our schedule.
Or we can use K’s Polishness as an excuse: Poles always put their Christmas trees up later (sometimes, only a couple of days before Christmas) and take them down later.
The Boy and I chopped it up in the afternoon. “This is so satisfying,” he said. For us all, in different ways…
Christmas Day 2020
Wigilia 2020
My first wigilia was in 1996. I’d been in Poland for only five months at that point, and I celebrated it with the family in Radom with whom I stayed when we Peace Corps volunteers first arrived in Poland. The fact that I first went to Poland in the Peace Corps says a lot about how much the country has changed. We were there to teach English and help NGOs catch their balance, and we spent twelve weeks in Radom beginning to learn Polish and starting to get an understanding of Polish culture. A few months later, my host family invited me back to Radom to spend Christmas with them. That it was the last time I ever saw them is evidence of how close we were. I don’t remember much about that first wigilia other than the fact that I was always a little uncomfortable. My host-brother and I never quite got along (I believe he questioned my intelligence, for he often behaved that way), so that first wigilia would certainly not be the standard by which to judge the tradition.
My second wigilia celebration was with the family that lived across the river from me in Lipnica, the family that became so much like family that I found myself thinking, “So this would have been what it was like to have a relationship with my host family like others had with theirs.” It was everything wigilia should have been the year before. Afterward, we all walked down to babcia’s house had continued the celebration with the extended family.
My third wigilia, in 1999, I was in Berlin with a friend. We didn’t have much of a wigilia.
Wigilias four and five really didn’t happen. I was back in America and not really close to anyone who celebrated it. Besides, it’s a time for family: one doesn’t invite mere close friends.
Since 2001, though, I’ve been involved in wigilia celebrations yearly. I spent 2001 with the family from wigilia two. I was at that time renting a room from them, and it just seemed logical. And there was no one else I would or could have celebrated it with.
It was much like wigilia two: warm and friendly, like with family.
It was with my fourth real wigilia, in 2002, that wigilia became a true wigilia. K and I were by then dating. Our future seemed to be coming into focus as a future together. L and E weren’t even thoughts in our minds but we were starting to feel like a family.
Wigilia 2003 was much the same as 2002 but with one difference: K and I were engaged. L and E were thoughts in our minds, inevitable joys that we had not yet named or met but were certainties in some sense.
Since then, wigilia has been the same wigilia that everyone else has celebrated: a time with family. Our last wigilia in Poland, in 2004, was our first as a married couple. K’s brother came with his wife and son — now eighteen — and we celebrated as all Polish families celebrate.
Moving to America, we celebrated every wigilia with one constant: Nana and Papa. Other friends joined from time to time. Some friends in the passing of years become more than just friends. Then we added L. Then E. And things went along like that for several years, until we lost Nana. So while there’s always been a certain continuity from wigilia to wigilia, from year to year, we have made adjustments along the way.
K has made adjustments in how she makes the zakwas for the barszcz. This year, instead of the ceramic container with a slice of bread on top, she left the beets and garlic in water and garlic alone, only much longer than the normal four days. It was a recipe she found online, I believe. The result: zakwas so good that she said she could drink it by itself. It was good, I thought, but not so good that I’d consume it as a refreshing beverage.
We’ve made adjustments in the gifts we arrange for Santa to give the kids. This year, we made sure Santa brought mainly art supplies for the Boy and money for the Girl.
So we’ve made adjustments significant and less so, but the constants threaded through it all are simple enough.
Previous Years
Wigilia 2001
Wigilia 2002
Wigilia 2003
Wigilia 2004
Wigilia 2005
Wigilia 2006
Wigilia 2007
Wigilia 2008
Wigilia 2009
https://matchingtracksuits.com/2010/12/25/wigilia-2010/
Wigilia 2011
Wigilia 2012
Wigilia 2013
Wigilia 2014
Wigilia 2015
Wigilia 2016
Wigilia 2017
Wigilia 2018
Wigilia 2019
Wigilia Preparation 2020
Baking 2020
Four-times-milled poppy seeds for makowiec. A little boy who couldn’t get enough of the cookie cutter. A daughter who made cookies with chocolate chips and crushed candy canes (they are as sublimely amazing as they sound). A Polish mother overseeing and guiding it all — who are we kidding? Doing most of the magic.
It’s getting close to Christmas.
First Day of Preparation
There are sounds and smells that are only associated with the Christmas season. A mixer running through the morning and then again through the evening is one of those sounds. First, in the morning, we run the mushrooms and cabbage through the grinder attachment to create two different pastes that will fill uszka and pierogi.
“I love uszka!” exclaims the Boy time and time again. Every time we have barszcz through the year, E asks if it’s going to be barszcz z uszkami.
“No, honey, that’s just Christmas Eve,” K responds patiently.
“Why?”
“Too much work.”
Once a year, though, it’s not too much work. It’s just enough work. After a couple of weekends of cleaning and several dishes to prepare over the coming days, a day making pierogi and uszka seems relatively insignificant.
But it is a lot of work. First, we saute the onions and the mushrooms while the sauerkraut bubbles away. It all gets strained and then _____ed. Then comes the tedious work: dumpling after dumpling, filled, folded, and pinched closed. More dough cut from the ever-dwindling ball, rolled flat, cut into circles, then again — filed, folded, and pinched. Filled, folded, pinched.
I head over and get a pinch of the mushroom/kraut miracle.
“G, you’re in my way,” K scolds.
The cleaning piles up during all that. A mountain of dishes that then gets leveled and remounded again and again.
Cycles within cycles. That’s what makes life comforting, its predictability at times. We spend so much of our time worrying about what’s coming that we long for those moments when what’s coming is what’s always come before.