 |
| After Christmas Vigil Mass at our church. |
 |
| My first Wigilia :) |
For the first Wigilia (Christmas Eve Supper), I tried to keep to some traditions. The 12 sides I prepared: deviled eggs, potato and egg based salat (salatka jarzynowa), barszcz (the red "soup" in the little white bowls), croisants, saurkraut with mushrooms, pumpernickle bread, herring in tomato sauce, sardines in tomato sauce, mixed berry compote & mixed berry jam (both home made), plain ole boiled potatoes, and for the world of me I don't remember the 12th dish! The foods themselves weren't all traditional, but their number (12) stood for both the 12 months of the coming year, and the 12 apostles of Jesus. There were no meats, per the traditional Catholic Friday fast, which allows for fish. I started cooking on Friday, and finished on Sunday - and never stressed out! (If you know me, you know cooking of any sort stresses me out! lol)
 |
| A couple sides still covered, but here's the table. |
We shared the traditional oplatek, which is essentially an unconsecrated host - the same one we use for Holy Communion during Mass. Apparently priests used to send Communion home for Christmas so that homebound relatives could receive Our Lord at Christmastime. Since then, it's become a symbolic tradition and the "wafers" are no longer consecrated (meaning they are not the same as the ones we receive at Mass because Our Lord isn't in them.)
 |
| Natalia sharing the oplatek with Antonio. |
 |
| Daddy and Natalia exchanging well wishes (and oplatek) for the new year. |
For Christmas Day, we visited my parents and met up with my sister as well. She is quite elusive, but so everyone believes that I do indeed have a sister (lol!), here are a couple photos with her in them!
 |
| Christmas Day at my parents'. |
My mom cooked up a storm, as usual. Yummy food was had by all :)
 |
| My sister, mom, dad, Oscar w/ Antonio, Natalia. |
 |
| My sister showing us how to use the loom she just got me for Christmas! |
We held out on giving the kids presents since we knew they would be showered with gifts at my parents'. Their gifts easily held them over until we had them open a couple gifts from us on New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, and Epiphany.
 |
| Natalka with her bag of treats! |
We also wanted to keep the focus on Jesus' birthday, and not an excuse to get stuff. It's a work in progress... hopefully by next Christmas, we'll have a better system in place.
