Poland

Polish Christmas Traditions

We have got a lot of Christmas traditions. Some are similar to yours, but others are different and characteristic only to our country. We want to tell you about our habits. We celebrate Christmas from 24th to 26th December.

24th- Christmas Eve 25th- First day of Christmas26th- Second day of Christmas

Christmas Tree Christmas Tree we decorate by: Ornaments, tinsel, lights, sweets and handmade ornamentsbefore Christmas (not on Christmas Eve morning).

Everyone’s Christmas tree is different and beautiful.

Christmas EveWe start dinner when we see the first star on the sky. Later we share holly wafer with the whole family and we wish them all the best for Christmas and New Year. We sit to table where we have got 12 dishes, each one symbolizes 1 month of joy, so we must try all of them.

Our traditoinal dishes to Christmas dinner are for example:

beetroot souppoppy seed cakebigos (cabbage with mushrooms) pierogi carp compote of dried fruitsbread gingerbread salads (without meat)

What have we got under plate?• Person who prepares carp for the

Christmas Eve, picks it from scales. Later they pack in small bags, because during the dinner everyone can find one of those bags under their plate and put in their wallet. The more scales, the more money next year.• Christmas is a Catholic holiday, so

under the tablecloth we put figurine of small Jesus Christ on the hay as it was in Bethlehem.

Santa Claus

He is a magical person who brings presents to good people. Children wait for Santa to come for the whole year. He travels in big sleigh with reindeer from Lapland and has a lot of presents to everyone there. Children believe that he comes at night to their house through the chimney and leaves presents in a big bag under the Christmas Tree.

First and second day of ChristmasOn the first and the second day of Christmas we meet with other members of our family. We eat then: other dishes, gingerbreads which we made and decorated ourselves and sing Christmas carols.

We hope that you know more about Christmas in Poland now :).

Thank you for your attention!

Karolina Słodkowska