Although we celebrate Christmas on 25th -26th of December, we start preparing to it much earlier. On 6th December there is the Santa Clause Day and we get some small presents on that day. From that day on, we prepare to Christmas in many different ways.
Most people get excited, when Christmas comes. They want to prepare themselves for celebrating it. In December, the shops in the cities are very crowded. All people go to buy presents. The shopkeepers have many different tricks to attract the customers to buy in their shops. We buy not only presents, but also many different products, which are necessary to prepare traditional Christmas dishes.
Preparing to Christmas is usually quite tiring. People clean their houses carefully, they have to wash the clothes and do many other things. Moreover, one has to buy a Christmas tree- some prefer artificial ones, but in my house we always have the real one. When we already have it, we have to decorate it as well. We may decorate it with glass balls, candies, nuts, gingers and other thing. On its top there should be a star or an angel.
In Poland most people go to church during Christmas and they sing Christmas carols. Even those, who are not catholic do that as a part of the tradition. During Christmas we meet our relatives and friends. We talk, we walk and we eat much.
The Christmas time itself starts on 24th December. In the evening of this day we celebrate Christmas Eve. This is the most special day for many of us.
This is a day, when we don't eat meat. We prepare the traditional supper only from non-meat products. The most popular dishes are fired carp and red borsch with small pierogi (uszka).
All over Poland people have different traditional dishes. At my home, we eat 'makiełki'. It is a dish consisting on noodles, almonds, raisins, nuts and honey.
Before the supper we lay the table- under the cloth we put some hay and we lay one additional plate for the guest. We believe that is anyone knocks at the door and asks for help on this very day, we have to invite him and spend Christmas with him. We start eating when the first star appears at the sky. At the beginning, we wish each other happy Christmas and good New Year. When we finish eating, we sit and sing the carols and we talk about anything we want. We give each other presents- the parents put them under the tree, when the kids don't see it.
On midnight many people go to the church for the special mess- 'pasterka'. We celebrate the birth of Christ there. We sing the carols and we pray. Two days following Christmas Eve we spend on celebrating. We visit our families and friends, we talk and eat all the time. After these two days we are tired of eating and talking and we are happy to get back to normal life.
