BellaOnline Forums Travel and Culture Polish Culture Christmas Traditions in Poland

I love learning about Christmas traditions from around the world. What are some traditions in Poland and does your family keep those traditions? What are some of the traditional foods for the Christmas season?

Definitely one of those traditions (and one of my favourite ones) is leaving a spare chair by the Christmas table - for the unexpected guest:)

We had our class Eve. With wafer sharing, red borsch with dumplings, smoked salmon and cakes.

Love the curtains. I would love a pair just like the ones on the windows. Too bad we don't have the same here in the states.

Here is one of my traditons (30 years of collecting)
My Christmas Tree

With summer being almost over and the holiday season sneaking up on us, I would like to revive this thread. When my kids were little and still at home, I always made Christmas Eve a little different each year. That made very memorable times and gave us a lot to talk about in the following years.

On Christmas Eve, each year, we celebrated by having a supper with a menu from a different country. I would like to have a Polish menu Christmas Eve supper. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Christmas Eve was always special when I was growing up. Over the years, we've scaled down the celebration because fewer in the family gather together.

We always had an extra place set, white table cloth (represented purity of Christ), hay in center surrounding red candles (represented humility and the coming sacrifice), and dined on 12 different dishes (represented the 12 apostles). After dinner, we'd head off to church services. When we got home, my grandmother would light the candles on the tree and we'd open presents. Our traditions were a mixture of Polish/Austrian.

Wiki has an article on the 12-dish Christmas Eve dinner and you can read it here Christmas Eve dinner in 12 dishes

Lyn, what lovely traditions your family has. I really like the "12-dish Christmas Eve dinner" and the symbolism of it. Thank you so much for sharing that. Lovely!

Yes, I would not be able to get through my FRONT door (lol). I LOVE to eat...........