christmas
Wigilia Prep 2015
What would the Christmas season be without a thunderstorm and a flooded crawl space, pate and coloring books, uszka and laundry?
Carol: In the Bleak Midwinter (Instrumental)
Carols: O Ce Veste Minunata
“O Ce Veste Minunata,” a Romanian carol
Carol: Mizerna Cicha
Kasia Kowalska – “Mizerna cicha”
Carol: U to Vrijeme Godišta
“U to vrijeme godišta,” a Croatian carol
Carol: Πόψι Χριστός γεννήθηκε
A Greek Christmas carol, “Popsi Christos gennithik” transliterated
Hark!
Carol: Бог предвічний народився
A Ukrainian carol, “Boh predvičnyj narodilsja” (“God Eternal is Born”)
Carol: Il est né le Divin Enfant
“Il est né le Divin Enfant,” a French carol
Concert 2015
Carol: O Menino está Dormindo
A Portugese carol
Carol: Mennyből az angyal
A Hungarian Christmas carol
Musevisa
Alf Prøysen performs his Noregian carol, “Musevisa”
Mikołaj’s Arrival
When we go to bed, it’s something of an act of faith. We assume that we’ll wake in the morning, that life will continue as normal.
When you’re a child of Polish heritage and you go to bed on December fifth, you do so with a certain faith that Mikołaj will come and leave a little something if you’ve been good. It’s probably not just Polish kids — it’s probably a Catholicism thing, since St. Nicholas’s day is today.
At our house, Mikołaj tends to bring practical gifts. No toys or games — books and other such every-day items. For instance, we recently had issues with lacking umbrellas when we had a lot of rain for several days on end. No one really had a satisfactory way to keep the rain off them. Somehow, Mikołaj figured that out and brought umbrellas for the kids. The Boy got a Thomas the Train umbrella while the Girl received an umbrella with a print of Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
And as usual, there were Polish books and CDs for everyone.
After lunch, we all headed out to the yard for some decorating.
And some playing.
Once everything was hung and the power cords stretched out and draped here and there, the ladders put up and the empty boxes replaced, we went to the local open air market to get our tree. It’s often such a chore in a way: which one do we choose? We end up going back and forth between two or three, thinking about it, talking about it — at least that’s how it’s always seemed to me. Today, though, it was a simple enough matter. I suggested a tree; K agreed, then reconsidered; K suggested a tree; I agreed; we purchased it.
Soon enough it was strapped down to our car, then propped on our back patio, then standing in our living room. A fairly painless adventure this time. But I really shouldn’t complain: however long it takes to pick a tree is however long it takes to pick the perfect tree. This year, we certainly picked a perfect one — full, thick, and heavy, not to mention tall — so perfect that when we put it up and K and the kids hung all the decorations, it began leaning toward the middle of the room.
But that’s a story for another post. This one needs a perfect ending, like catching Santa just as he hops in his minivan and heads out to spread some Christmas cheer.
Christmas 2014
“We’ll take Easter,” K explained, “because we have the big yard for the Easter egg hunt. K and B will switch off with A and P for Christmas.” This year, it was K’s and B’s turn, and since A and P went back to Poland with their family for Christmas, it was a small affair.
K and B have a new attraction, especially for the Boy: Little K has grown up a lot. She’s toddling around, making messes, taking things from others’ hands, being a young toddler.
E tries to talk to her, but to no avail. “She’s not talking,” he exclaims sadly. “She can’t talk. She’s too little.”
For L, it’s a different story. A’s and P’s absence also means F and K are not there. Which means that L is the big fish. Which means she needs something to do.
So she ends her day as she began it: playing with a new Christmas toy.
Dual-Play
It’s fantastic when a single toy entertains both.
Wigilia 2014
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/
Baking and Decorating
