Hello there, how has your week been? Mine has been quiet busy I must say. It has been the last week of school before we broke up for the winter break, this means I finally have time to get enough sleep (yay!).
Anyway, on the topic of Christmas, depending on your culture and religion you probably celebrate it in many different ways, or you possibly don't celebrate it at all. I think it is fascinating. Before I came to live in England, I thought that all Christians celebrate it in the same way. Well let me tell you that it certainly is not the case.
Let's start with the date. I know most British people celebrate Christmas on the 25th of December. This is when they have their Christmas dinner and open presents and everything. We, at least majority of citizens in Poland which means roman Catholics, celebrate it on the 24th of December. We have more of a supper than a dinner as we start eating in late evening. Then, after we have eaten we open our presents.
Oh, and there is a date on the 6th of December when we also give each other presents, not the main present of course, kind of smaller things. So yes, technically we get presents twice.
As for the Christmas tree, I think it varies depending on the household. With my grand parents, we sometimes decorated the tree earlier but now, since we usually celebrate just the 4 of us we decorate it on the 24th and it's usually up to me and my sister to do that while my mum and dad do all the preparations in the kitchen. They usually complain about where we put the decorations anyway, but theoretically it's up to us. The decorations are ordinary, some chains, baubles and some DIY stuff to add a personal touch. When I was younger, my grandmother used to hang some sweets on the Christmas tree and I would play something along the lines of secret agent and sneak and eat them anyway, leaving just the wrapper hanging and then blame it on my grandfather. Nobody ever believed me but it was worth a try.
Food. As you get older, you probably start looking more to eating at the Christmas table than you did when you were a child. I remember when I was younger, before opening any of the presents everyone at the table had to finish eating and there has always been somebody who ate either slowly or ate a lot. So sitting at a Christmas table has been a bit of a torture for a child who wanted to open the presents as quickly as possible. Anyway, traditionally we have 12 dishes. We eat no meat, only fish. The main...thing is the carp. Without the carp Christmas is not really Christmas (at least for me). I haven't seen in England yet, but in Poland when I was younger and we spent the Christmas with my grandparents we would buy live carp (like 3 of them) and put them in the bath and they swam there until it was time to kill them, usually that's what my grandfather did, and fry it. Once they let me catch one of the carps from the bath and I picked it up and it would look at me and move it's mouth and it scared me but made me laugh at the same time.
Another food that we have are dumplings. They are not like big dumplings, they are quiet small. There is some other types of fish done in different ways and we have beetroot soup.
So as you can see, there is a bit of a difference from eating turkey. Oh, and I almost forgot. Just before we sit down and get down do eating, we share a piece of Christmas wafer (I'm sorry if that's not what it's called. I tried translating it and that's what it came up with). So, every person present has a piece of it and we go around and share it with each other, wising the person something, it can be work, money, good grades. Kind of like you wish somebody something on their birthday.
I don't know about you, but these traditions are quiet important to me. This is how I have always celebrated Christmas and I plan on continuing to do so even when I have my own family. It just makes me feel closer to my family, all the preparations, and that there is more to Christmas than just presents. These traditions kind of keep the magic in this season. As I got older and stopped believing in santa and choosing my own presents, the magic died a little. I don't really have anything to look forward to, no surprises.
It is a bit early, but I would like to say Merry Christmas to everyone!
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