Christmas Tree
holidays
Getting the Christmas Tree and Random Memories
We’re still settling into a new routine with Babcia. K has gotten her old phone charged and running, but the closest Babcia has come to an iPhone is the old tablet we bought her years ago.
Nana struggled with smartphones as well. Papa made the switch fairly easily, and then when we brought him an iPhone to replace his Android phone, he made the shift without much complication. Nana just experienced frustration: a few tries, and she was done.
“I can’t even answer Papa’s phone!” she once declared. She just handed it to him. She wasn’t having it.
I sometimes wondered if it wasn’t a sort of willful helplessness: she’d never had any problem learning new things in the past. When Papa brought home a new computer in the early eighties, she learned how to use it. Each time he upgraded after that, she learned how to use it. New software, new user interfaces (i.e., the mouse). But for whatever reason, she just never had the motivation to learn how to use a smartphone.
Lights
Independence Day 2023
Foods of Wigilia 2022
St. Stephen’s Day 2022
Christmas 2022
Wigilia 2022
Tonight, K and I celebrated our twentieth Wigilia together. Twenty Christmas Eves. Hundreds, no, likely thousands, of uszki. Cakes upon cakes upon cakes. Salads and sides, fish and oplatki, pierogi and presents. Twenty years of them.
A very significant Wigilia indeed.
Over the years, various significant Wigilias have passed without us realizing their significance. The last Wigilia with Dziadek was in 2007: he would live another six years, but we were never again together during the Christmas season.
Wigilia of 2017 was our last Wigilia with Nana. She was in the rehabilitation hospital in 2018, and by Wigilia 2019, she had passed away. We, of course, didn’t know this was the last Wigilia with her. Perhaps that’s for the best? Too depressing — just treat every Wigilia as if it’s the last one with those around you.
Wigilia 2020 was our last one with Papa. Again, if we had known…
By then, he was “Papa” to everyone, the resident elder with patience and love enough to match his years — to surpass them by far, in fact.
And so last year’s Wigilia was significant in that it was the first without either Nana, Papa, or Dzidek, and physically without Babcia as she was in Polska. Their absence doesn’t go unnoticed, to be sure, but we’ve all grown accustomed to the new world without them.
This year’s affair was the most intimate we’ve ever had. Even our close friends from Asheville weren’t here, only the youngest of the crew, C.
And how was it with such a small group? No different. We shared the opłatki (inasmuch as American teens can be sentimental). We ate a small dinner — relatively speaking.
We opened presents. Some were serious efforts to please; others, not so much. The Boy got a book on making small changes to make big changes in your life. It’s called Make Your Bed. Perhaps that’s a habit we’re still having difficulty instilling in our son?
After the traditional Christmas Eve gift opening time — what’s not to love about that particular Polish tradition?! — we stacked electronic devices into a single pile, pulled out a game we all agreed on playing, and proceeded to have the most lovely time together.
A screening of White Christmas — what a lovely and innocent film! — we headed off for Midnight Mass for the first time as a whole family in a very long time.
In short, a perfect Wigilia.
Christmas Concert 2014
St. Stephen’s Day 2013
Turkey, sweet potato pie, gelatin salad, games, more gifts.
It must be St. Stephen’s Day.
Return to Russian
What happens when you throw a group of thirty-somethings from Poland together with a babcia who used to teach Russian? Everyone sings all the Russian songs they can remember from elementary school Russian classes.
animals facts
A cheetah can run 60 mils an hour. A leopard and a cheetah look a like but they aren’t alike. I have a cat named bida. I like cat’s.
Christmas 2013
When I was a kid, my family used to drive from southwest Virginia to Nashville almost every year for Thanksgiving. In the mid-eighties, when the speed limit everywhere was 55, it took just over six hours.
Six hours in the car for a ten-year-old was utter living Hades: it was never-ending boredom in the days before smart phones, portable DVD players, and iPods.
The trip there was bearable, for there was something to look forward to. The trip back was hellish because all the excitement had passed.
Six hours in a car — a long, long, long time.
Six hours with family and good friends on Christmas day, though, passes in a flash.
God Rest Ye Gentlemen
Wigilia 2013
“You girls got to play all day yesterday; today, you’ll be helping out a lot.” Thus began the day, and thus the girls began their day of helping, much of which was more spiritual than physical. Still, transferring the clean dishes from the dishwasher and moving the dirty breakfast dishes from the table to the dishwasher was a good start
And so for a change, every year’s is not the same, at least at the start. The girls all chip in throughout the morning, taking care of the Boy as he horses about,
or cutting veggies for the Christmas morning breakfast. (How odd I used to find it that a Polish breakfast might include a salad of some sort or other; how odd I now find it that I used to find it odd.)
It’s always amusing to me how a little Tom Sawyering can turn anything into a game for kids this age. At one point, one of the girls suggested they go up L’s room to play. “No,” the other two replied, “we want to help.”
As the day turned to afternoon, though, the Girls’ help became more spiritual, less physical. T took out her holiday music and began playing for the Girls as they sang carols.
They began with “Angels We Have Heard on High,”
and followed it with “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” to which E added some avant garde accompaniment.
As we continued cutting, chopping, boiling, spicing, setting the table,
and whining, the girls performed “Silent Night,”
and moved quickly to a very interesting arrangement of “Jingle Bells.”
Of course the girls wouldn’t be The Girls if they didn’t add something silly to the mix. T sat this one out, but C and L had great fun recording their version of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”
By this time, though, it was time to stop with the silliness and get started on the main courses for the evening. I went out to fire up the grill and the Girls all transformed. The Boy waited though. “He’s still wiping his nose on his sleeve,” K explained. “We’ll wait with him.” And so picture-perfect girls bounded about the house while I grilled salmon, fried an improvised invention (oyster and crab cakes, which I think I’ll try again), and Babcia looked on with a smile.
Once Nana and Papa arrived, the rest of the evening went by in a blur. We began as always: Papa read from the Gospel of St. Luke, chapter 2.
I scooted about, taking pictures, directing L to stop messing with E and listen to Papa, and generally worrying that the crab/oyster cakes might not be as tasty as I imagined.
The dinner itself went by in a blur, which is always the case, and I always find it somewhat tragic. So much time spent preparing barszcz z uszkami, crab/oyster cakes, mushroom soup (where did those mushrooms come from? surely not Poland!), cabbage and mushroom pierogis, salmon, potatoes, and salad, cheese cake, Polish sweets, and a million other delicacies and it’s gone in about an hour. We try to slow down; we all comment on the tragedy of it all; and every single year, we all inhale it. This year was no different, which is both a complement to the chefs and a sad illustration of how quickly we all tend eat.
For the kids, though, it was normal: there was only one thing on their minds. The presents.
So we moved to the living room, listened to more caroling,
and eventually began opening presents.
We tried out some of the gifts
and lamented and celebrated that such an evening occurs only once a year.
Previous Years
Wigilia Preparation
By the time we’re almost ready to sit down at the table, I’ve made at least six or seven trips to the compost bin. Eggs shells from the boiled eggs for the salads, limp, cooked vegetables from the stock for various soups, peelings from potatoes, carrots, and parsnips, all taken out to the compost bin, which I then turn with a pitchfork, letting oxygen in, steam out, to begin the regenerative process. In time, all of the cast off material will break down to near-elemental form and it will all serve as nourishment for tomatoes and raspberries, squash and snap peas, and whatever else we choose to grow next year. All we have to do is wait.
Pre-Wigilia Messes
There’s a mess in the kitchen as the baking, baking, baking starts in the morning and extends into the evening.
There’s a mess in the Girl’s room as three little girls and a little boy start playing in the morning and finish up in the evening.
