Christmas(es)...mostly of the Polish variety.

**note to reader: this post is being posted about a month after I wrote it. The way I figure it, it's better than 2 months late.**

I have eaten my fill of mazurek. The little Polish cookies, sort of like shortbread with different toppings are delicious, yes. But at this point, I've been eating them for two weeks, and can't do it anymore...until Easter that is, at which time I will be all too enthusiastic to pop them into my mouth until I feel sick because I have eaten too many.


I'm full of mazurek earlier this year than any other because I did a Polish Christmas in Newark before I came home. The journey that led me to come home for the holidays instead of staying is one for another post, and I won't get into it here. But, I insisted then, that I would do Polish Christmas Eve on the 17th...exactly one week early. And, as all things, it started small, and grew. And grew. And grew. And on the 17th, one week early, the Newark JVC house held a Wiligia with 7 guests - coworkers and friends.


Having never cooked the dishes for Polish Christmas before - only Easter, I tried my best, and found, as I did when I did my first Polish Easter by myself, that that is what home tastes like. Polish Christmas.


And on that night, we lit the candle in the window, we put the straw at the corners of the table, I read the Polish blessing, and everyone stood in a circle and broke oplatki with each other. And once again, "home" got all confused and fuzzy in my mind. Because maybe just at that moment, I couldn't imagine what else would be necessary to make that home.


...and then I went home.


Home - where my mother and father and sister were all also cooking and lighting the candles in the window and setting the table and I had Polish Christmas again. They were exactly the same, and at the same time completely different experiences. I can't say which one I "liked better". There was really no way to compare them. Same smells, same tastes, same traditions - just pulled off in a slightly different manner.

Christmas was definitely different this year. A little rushed - I was only home for one week instead of two - and it was hard to think about coming back to life in New Jersey. But it was still Polish...(and we all know that's really what counts!)

love, Bethy

PS pictures to come soon once I figure out how to do that with no internet at home and no wireless at work with my pictures on my laptop. Hmm...a conundrum.