Christmas - The Same Festival Yet So Many Ways to Celebrate

I would like to share with you the memories of my childhood Christmas, which gave me a gift that, so far, lasted my lifetime. The most significant difference between the “modern” and the “old-time” celebration (or maybe between the celebrations I’ve experienced in my country of origin, compared to the celebrations in the western countries) is the “object of celebration”. When I was a kid, the celebration wasn’t about “what we got” but “who gave it to us”. The modern way of celebrating isn’t about who gave it to us, but about what we got.

Christmas Celebrations I observed after emigration.

Many could associate Christmas with the most stressful period of the year. We start searching for the perfect presents for our loved ones months before the special day of exchanging gifts, knowing that regardless of what we buy, the recipient probably won’t be happy. We mustn’t forget to keep the invoice/receipt so they can exchange it for whatever they actually want.

On the day of the celebration, kids throw tantrums because what they got isn’t what they wanted, or even if they are satisfied, they play with the new toy for a few hours or maybe even days, and then get bored with it and want something new. Adults politely say “thank you”, looking pleadingly at you with eyes saying, “please, give me the receipt, too; I really need to exchange it for something better.”

The next day, Boxing Day… a slight conflict of emotions, “should I spend the day with my loved ones or maybe better I should go and exchange the gift for something I want?” This problem gets quickly resolved — of course, let’s go and exchange the gift. In the end, loved ones will be there tomorrow, and the special thing I desperately want could be sold out! Not to mention all the Boxing Day specials, they definitely won’t be there tomorrow!

And then New Year’s Eve comes, everyone gets drunk and… starts the New Year with the feeling of desperately needing a holiday to relax after this stressful time ; )

Celebrating Christmas in Australia has an additional quirk to it. While the Northern Hemisphere is covered in snow and everyone is trying to find a warm place, hiding at home and looking at the warm, colourful lights, Australians are going to the beach trying to find some relief from the relentless sun and heat.

We still have Christmas trees decorated with colourful lights, though I’m not sure who tries to feel warmer by temperatures close to 40C ; ) For me, this surely doesn’t feel like Christmas — at least I don’t miss my family as much as I would living on the northern hemisphere.

Christmas of my childhood back in Poland

For those who don’t know me, I was blessed to grow up in a communistic country, where, for close to 2 years, we had martial law, essential goods like food and clothing weren’t something granted, and sweets like chocolate were practically non-existent. This assured us that Christmas time was a truly special time.

In some respect, the celebration started on the first day of Advent. In Australia, I was corrected a few times that “Advent time/season” isn’t an English expression, and it actually doesn’t even make sense. “We have Advent’s Calendar, but not Advent’s time,” I was told. I don’t want to argue with anyone, but here is the definition of Advent: “The first season of the Church year, leading up to Christmas and including the four preceding Sundays.”

As children, my sister and I, each of us had an Advent calendar, too. I’m not sure if we had it every year, but I remember times when we got them from our church, or my grandparents’ friends sent us some from Germany. What a joy this was! Every morning, for 24 days in a row, we couldn’t wait to open the tiny door of the beautiful calendar, check which shape/picture this tiny delicious chocolate had, and let it melt on our tongues! A piece of real chocolate! How exciting!

But it wasn’t only the special exotic taste of chocolate we enjoyed so much. The house had to be prepared for Christmas; everything had to be tidied up, windows sparkling, dust removed from all shelves, and every corner of the house had to be perfectly clean. Believe it or not, we loved this preparation, too, as this was all the anticipation of Christmas that made it so exciting. Every cleaned surface reminded us that Christmas was closer and closer.

The baking started well in advance, so our home was filled with the sweet smells of cookies and various spices. At Christmas, we had unique dishes, not fancy, but something we had only once a year. And this made the anticipation, the excitement of Christmas, even more extraordinary.

In December, we could buy a bit more flour and sugar, but most of the baking supplies probably came from the church. Our church had a close relationship with a Protestant church in Germany, and they sent us some goodies for the festive season. This also included gifts for kids, small bags filled with sweets, including chocolate Santa Clauses, sweet Christmas tree decorations, and similar. We received these gifts during the mass for children. While the choir quietly sang Christmas carols, the pastor called our names, and we ran to the sanctuary decorated with two large Christmas trees and received our gift.

I digress a bit, so back to the baking, which I loved so much! I was super excited when I could create all the tasty little wonders. My mum wasn’t always so excited because… she simply knew me too well. What usually happened was, on Saturday, I would start baking dozens of various cookies. The activity went well into the night. Then I got exhausted and went to sleep. The next day my mum entered the kitchen and got a shock — there wasn’t one clean pan in the cupboard, and all benches were covered with flour and traces of batter. And, of course, I didn’t have time to clean it, so I left all the joy to my frustrated mum.

About a week before Christmas Eve, with my mum and sister, we went to the nursery in the forest to choose a Christmas tree. It was important for us to have a natural tree because of its unique fresh smell, which added to the festive feeling. Sometimes we would get three trees — one for us, one for grandpa, and one for auntie, who all lived with us. The world was covered in snow, and we didn’t have a car, so my mum put us on a wooden kids’ sleigh, and we went to get the trees. On the way home, the trees were on the sleigh, and my sister and I walked while playing in the deep snow. Oh, how much joy this was!

One of our traditional festive season dishes was fried carp. A couple of weeks before Christmas, there were stalls everywhere in town selling live carp. We bought a few for the entire family, and they were swimming in a bathtub in our cellar for a few days. The fish was killed and cut into fillets a day before the festive dinner. Today I see it as animal cruelty, having a big carp swimming in a small bathtub, but this was part of our tradition.

The day of Christmas Eve was lively and spirited, slightly stressful, but in a positive sense. Everybody was excited and wanted to ensure all preparations were completed on time, and we would have the most wonderful supper and the perfect start to the festive season. For us, the main celebration was supper on Christmas Eve. It was also the time for exchanging gifts.

The day started with decorating the spruce. My dad’s responsibility was to place all trees in stands, and later he would help us, my sister and I, to decorate our tree. However, first I ran to my grandparents’ apartment on the first floor and helped them decorate their tree. This was the number one priority because the festive dinner and most celebrations would happen in their room.

My mum was cooking fish soup out of the carps’ heads, a particular type of potato salad, and some other dishes, while my auntie’s responsibility was to fry all the fish steaks.

It was pretty late in the afternoon when my sister, dad and I finally started decorating our tree. Except for traditional ornaments made from glass, we would adorn the tree with little chocolate ornaments we got from the church and cookies we baked ourselves.

We always planned to have supper at the time when the first star appeared in the sky, which was around 4 pm. But this never happened. It was closer to 8 pm when we all, my dad’s parents, his sister with her daughter, and our family of 4, sat at the festively decorated table. There was always one empty place in case of an unexpected guest (this was our tradition). After praying and mentioning all those who weren’t with us anymore, we could start relishing all the delicious foods. We were very hungry because most of the day we fasted, so the supper tasted even better.

After supper, we would go to my auntie’s apartment on the same floor. My auntie played Christmas carols on her piano, and we all sang. At some point, my grandpa disappeared without us kids noticing anything. Suddenly we could hear a bell ring, and we knew the angel had brought gifts, so we kids ran back to grandpa’s apartment to find plenty of presents under the tree.

My sister, cousin, and I, in turn, would get a gift from under the tree and hand it to the person it was meant for. The gifts were simple, mostly clothes or some other practical things, or a toy for each kid, but everyone was so grateful and happy with what they received. The room was filled with joy and gratitude.

After the festivities at my grandparents were finished, we walked to our apartment to find even more gifts under our beautifully decorated tree. So the celebration and the joy continued.

The legend said that animals would speak a human language at midnight on Christmas Eve. Usually, we were too tired to wait till midnight to confirm this, but when occasionally we stayed up for so long and visited our sheep and chickens at midnight, they looked at us, surprised and speechless, without making any sound, so I’m still not sure if the legend is true or not ; )

The next day we went to the church. This wasn’t always safe, especially not during martial law, because gatherings of religious minorities were prohibited (Poland is about 98% catholic, so protestants are definitely a minority). If the authority knew we went to the church, my dad could have been arrested and tortured. Prisons in communistic countries weren’t the 5-star hotels we know in western countries, where prisoners often have more rights than many living in poverty outside the prison. We were lucky, and my dad never got arrested.

On Boxing Day, we either continued celebrations with my father’s side of the family, or we visited my mum’s family, who lived about 75km away — a significant distance in those days, especially because we didn’t have a car and public transport was anything but good.

In some respect, the celebrations continued until Shrove Tuesday, but I have written more than enough so that I won’t go into any more details.

The greatest gift of Christmas

Christmas taught me to find joy and happiness in the simple things in life, even in chores — like cleaning the house for Christmas. For us, it wasn’t a chore because we didn’t think, “I have to clean the house”. No, we thought, “I want to clean the house because I want to enjoy Christmas with my family in a tidy home. I want everybody to have a pleasurable time.”

It taught me to appreciate, be grateful, and savour everything I receive. As I mentioned earlier, we got plenty of sweets on Christmas, but we didn’t eat everything during the festive season. No, the sweets lasted for weeks, if not months. My sister and I each had a little basket, and we placed all the sweets in the basket. Then every day, we would take one little piece, relish the taste and relive the joy of Christmas over and over again.

It taught me about the excitement and delight found in anticipation.

Thanks to my past Christmas experiences, I can have a happy and fulfilling life. I have never lost the “joy of a little kid”; it is still living in my heart, and then and again, it comes out. The last time I was told “You are like a little kid at Christmas” was just a week ago when I signed a new work contract. Most people said, “You deserve it! You have all the right skills, education, and experience. Of course you should get it!”. For me… There is no “should”; nothing is granted in life, and everything is a reason to be grateful. I’m thankful I had the opportunity to get all the skills required for this position, I’m thankful the interviewers recognised my skills, and I’m grateful they gave me the contract. I’m still super excited about my new job, like a little child who just got a new toy.

Note: Originally I posted this article on Medium: Christmas - the same festival yet so many ways to celebrate