I hope you had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends. As my family and I celebrated Wigilia (pronounced Valia) on Christmas Eve, it made me wonder what traditions you follow during this time of the year and for the coming New Year.
Wigilia is a Polish festivity which my family enjoys every Christmas Eve. After we celebrate Wigilia, we open the gifts just before Midnight. One of the reasons I love this tradition is because cooking on Christmas Eve makes Christmas Day so much more fun and relaxing. Although the tradition is to make 12 dishes which symbolize the 12 disciples and the 12 months of the year, my family simply concentrates on certain foods and just enjoying each other’s company.
I enjoy making a lot of the dishes using recipes that have been passed down to me from my husband’s relatives. Sadly enough, over the years, we’ve improvised a lot of things and I no longer make pierogies from scratch but buy Mrs. Smith’s pierogies. Our favorites are the Mushroom Soup and fresh-baked poppy-seed bread and nut bread right out of our oven. I still make the breads from scratch. Although the tradition has changed since I first celebrated Wigilia with my husband and his family, below is a list of what Wigilia in our home now consists of, but even that has been reduced to just a few items this Christmas as my son is away in the Navy and my eldest daughter in Oklahoma. With both of them away this Christmas, it made me realize that the biggest joy of making all these fabulous dishes was seeing my family enjoying them.
1. Mushroom Soup
2. Fried pierogies
3. Golumpki/golabki (cabbage rolls stuffed with meat and rice) – my husband makes the best golumpki
4. Sauerkraut
5. Tilapia (herrings or fish of your choice)
6. Poppy-seed bread
7. Nut bread
8. Kielbasa
9. Ham
10. Turkey
11. Sweet potato casserole
12. Mashed potato
As Always,
Be blessed,~Arama Christiana
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