The best Christmases I ever had happened during my first 9 years of life. A few weeks prior to December 24, my mother was on the hunt for flour and eggs, worrying incessantly. After long waiting in lines she would secure enough of eggs so that even if some of them went bad, the rest would suffice for cakes and sweet bread called bulka. The most important item was carp eaten during the dinner on Christmas Eve - the climax of holidays. How does one serve fresh carp if no refrigeration is available? My parents had a simple solution: live carp was bought about a week in advance when lines were not too long and was kept in our bathtub. I used to watch the two suckers swimming back and forth, back and forth.
Carp is an interesting fish because it is both dumb and smart at the same time. I know that it sounds like a paradox to anyone raised on binary logic, the only logic used by mathematicians, but I have convincing proof of my statement. Namely, once every few days, we had to take a bath. On such days carp was put in a big pot full of water standing on a kitchen chair placed right next to the bathtub. The bathroom was too small for the chair to be placed anywhere else. Well, carp is so dumb that it attempts to jump out of the pot. We were instructed to call our father immediately so that he could put the silly thing back. Once a carp attempted suicide several times while I was taking a bath. That fish was fairly slick and vigorous - nobody else but my father was able to catch it while wriggling on the cement floor. At the same time carp must have been smart enough to jump in the direction parallel to the tub as it never landed in the hot bath water. I do not recall ever getting any instructions from my parents on what to do in such a case. It just never happened.
Eating carp was not really high on my list. It is full of bones and the taste is so-so. On the other hand I can recall the taste of herring even now while writing. We used to prepare it from scratch a few weeks prior to Christmas marinating it in small or medium size jars. Marinated herring with sour cream is saliva-tingly delicious. Another food I extremely enjoyed was homemade sausage brought by our grandparents. They raised a few pigs (besides goats and sheep) and used to hire a butcher to make goodies from them on big occasions like Christmas or Easter. My grandparents moved in with us around 1957-8, and I have never eaten such sausage since. But, I can smell it and see it even now.
As I said before, the climax of holidays was Christmas Eve. We semi-fasted, and most of the day, as far as children were concerned, was devoted to decorating of the tree. Half of the decorations were made by us, the rest were bulbs accumulated over the years which we pulled out of carefully packed boxes. At a certain moment, candies started to be widely available and most Polish families hung a pound or two of the so-called Wedel mixture (mieszanka wedlowska) from their Christmas tree branches. There was a definite range of quality in that mieszanka. The quality was inversely proportional to the number of particular candies in the mixture, of course. There were a few ones called Bajeczny, there were more of Irys and Paryski. I tried to search on Internet for more info about mieszanka and I learned that FDA (Food and Drug Administration) recalled it from the US recently because the candies contained "Ponceau 4R (E124), an unapproved color additive, and sunset yellow FCF (E110, certifiable as FD&C Yellow #6)". Well, the FDA is a certifiable bunch of loonies, that's for sure. Anyhow, in my family we were not allowed to start eating Bajeczny first. The best candies had to stay on our Christmas tree until January 6. It was called the Three King's Day and that is when the tree was dismantled. Because of this smart policy of my parents, the tree remained gorgeous and attractive with best candies hanging on it until the last day. I remember a family in another city with whom I stayed for Christmas. The children were allowed to plunder the tree right after they woke up the first day of Christmas. The magic was gone as far as I was concerned.
At a certain moment sparklers became available. In my family we would bend the sparklers so that they would hang nicely from our tree. Then we would light them all at the same moment, creating an enchanting sight. We still have a few pictures of the whole family (taken on a delayed timer) sitting in front of our sparkling tree. Years later we actually had a fire caused either by sparklers or a candle. A family friend grabbed the tree and tossed it through window. Only the wooden floor got charred in few places.
Christmas Eve dinner actually started with borscht served with mushroom dumplings (barszcz z uszkami). After borscht fried carp was eaten. Interestingly, we never ate carp or borscht with mushroom dumplings at any other time during the year. Those two dishes were specifically prepared for that dinner only. Over the years I was checking what other families ate for Christmas Eve dinner. It seems to be highly related to the region of Poland that particular family came from.
Christmas Eve culminated with Midnight Mass at a local church. It was the only time our whole family attended church activities. Walking to the church was very interesting for 4-6 year old. It was unusually quiet, only the footsteps on the snow created a strange, creaking sound. There were no sidewalks (they were created a few years later via a "voluntary" community project called "praca spoleczna") and there was no concept of snow removal from the streets. The snow was just there, excellent for a midnight walk. The first Midnight Mass I remember was quite embarrassing for me. I was entrusted with a coin to put on the church plate at the right moment. However, I felt asleep on my mother's lap and I woke up hearing the jingle of the coin jumping up and down on the floor all the way to where the priest presided (we sat in the first pew). The whole church stared at me, perhaps my fumble interrupted some solemn moment.
The part of Christmas I miss the most is singing carols in a semi-dark room, with only a dozen candles lit on the Christmas tree. My father played the violin and the rest of us tried to sing the best we could. Since I did not know all the words and it was too dark to read them, I would simply hum, inserting the words "Christmas", "Maria", or "Jesus" when the feeling hit. My grandfather, normally a quiet man dominated by his wife, was really into it. His voice was loud and clear, booming over my siblings and me. The adults sat on a bed, and we were at the foot of it. It was really magical. Unfortunately in 1960, we bought a TV set and that part of Christmas ceased to exist in my family. Strangely enough, it was the children who lobbied for singing carols, but the adults were more interested in watching "White Christmas" and "Holiday inn" on TV.
P.S. It might seem strange that I do not write about gift exchanging on the first day of Christmas. In our family gifts were given to children on December 6th, the Saint Nicholas Day.