Monthly Archives: December 2007

Today, we will come home from Mass and begin preparing for our Christmas Eve Celebration, Wigilia (vi-GEE-lee-ah’). This is the traditional Polish Christmas Eve Vigil Dinner, beginning with the first star of the evening, Gwiazdka (g-VIAHZ-kah), followed by the lighting of the Christmas Tree, Choinka (hoy-EEN-kah), the sharing of the Christmas Wafer, Oplatek (oh-PWAH-tek), the not-totally-Polish-feast, the singing of Carols, Koledy, and finally, Midnight Mass, Pasterka (poss-STAIR-kah)!

My immediate family has not always celebrated Christmas like this.  We’ve always celebrated Christmas, but in varioius ways throughout the years. I discovered Wigilia in the process of researching our family history, and we all agreed that it was a wonderful way to celebrate the birth of Christ, and at the same time add some seriously lacking culture to our melting-pot family.

So, for me, Wigilia is a way of connecting.  A way of connecting, not only to my religion and my God, but to my family and my heritage.  Growing up, my family was (and actually still is) very scattered.  We didn’t go to visit family members often, and they only rarely came to see us. Weddings and funerals were the exceptions, and even then, most of the family couldn’t make it! I have very few memories of playing with my cousins.  In fact, I only have three first-cousins.  (As opposed to my husband, who has like, a million cousins, or some outrageous number like that!) And one of the few holiday-cousin memories I do have is of Spencer breaking the index finger of my left hand while we were trying to play German Dodgball! (Hey, is that cultural??)

My brother and my sister are both quite a bit older than I am, so I don’t have any real memories of growing up with them, either.  I do remember my brother used to walk around the house on his hands, and that was absolutely fascinating to me when I was three years old!  And I remember my sister babysitting me once.  She talked on the phone the whole time and kept putting the earpiece up to the stereo speaker so her friend could hear the song “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine”.  Funny, the things you remember!

I do remember going to Midnight Mass, and that was always a highlight.  It is such a beautiful service.  Even if someone is not Catholic, I am sure they would appreciate and enjoy the holiness and beauty of Midnight Mass!

So, I guess genealogy was, in many ways for me, a means to having a ‘past’, a family. It was a way to connect with the family I never knew, a way to ‘belong’, to somebody, somewhere.  I always knew that my grandmother was Polish.  I knew her mother had come from Poland to Chicago when she was only 17, and that the boat had caught on fire!

I met my great-grandmother at least four times that I can remember, and she was always a great source of fascination for me. She had piercing, coal-black eyes and a very thick Polish accent.  In fact, my father always needed a translator to converse with her, and she needed someone to tell her what he was saying because his Southern Drawl was too difficult for her to understand!  Dutifully, since it was her grandmother, after all, my mother would interpret for the two of them.  I understood my father’s dilemma, because she always referred to me as “Walleree”.  Daddy thought that was absolutely hysterical, but his sense of humor always was a bit ‘off’!

Food and cooking are the most vivid memories I have of my Polish Grandmother, who firmly believed that if it was breathing, she should feed it, and that no one at her table could ever get enough to eat. Such is the true legacy I received from Poland. So, in an attempt to celebrate the birth of our Savior in a more meaningful way, in an attempt to provide a cultural heritage for my children, I will cook!  I will cook for two days (and really should have started cooking yesterday!) and I will fill our home with the wonderful smells of Christmas Love!

My dad told me that when he was growing up back in the ’30s, women breastfeeding their babies was a common sight. In fact, it was expected. By the time my children were born, America had become so politically correct that women were being arrested for breastfeeding in public! (I love the one where the lady was arrested in Connecticut for nursing her child in a McDonald’s! It truly begs the question: were they offended that someone was breastfeeding in their establishment, or that someone was actually eating healthy food there??)

Anyway, I am a serious advocate of breastfeeding. I nursed all three of my kids, for progressively longer amounts of time. I am proud to say that I nursed my youngest for four and a half years! I’m not going to go into all the details here as to why it’s the best choice for Mom and Baby. Instead, I am going to post this sweet video that a friend sent to me the other day.

Back in the ’70s, things were still sweet and simple. We didn’t have to strangle ourselves with political correctness yet. I think Big Bird sums it up perfectly: “That’s nice.”

Several years ago, my mom went on a mission trip to Kenya.  She went during December, and was pleasantly surprised, after all the Kwanzaa Hype here in the States, to hear Christian Christmas music playing over the loudspeakers at the airport when she got off the plane.  There were no signs of Kwanzaa to be found.  Only Christmas, celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.  Apparently the Kenyans were unaware that they were breaking the norms of politically correct society.

Personally, I think Kwanzaa is sort of cool.  I am all about celebrating one’s unique heritage. We celebrate Wigilia on Christmas Eve. (This is a Polish tradition that I will talk about in more depth later.) I love the idea of Hanukkah.  I think it’s a wonderful tradition.  Those holidays and the people who celebrate them are not offensive to me.  Or threatening.  Why should they be?

But, here in the good ol’ US of A, Political Correctness reigns supreme!  I went to the mall the other day, and visited two stores.  I wished the first clerk “Merry Christmas”, and her entire countenance brightened.  She happily returned my greeting.  I entered the next store feeling a peaceful sense of Christmas contentedness.  Until I made the mistake of wishing the clerk in that store “Merry Christmas”.  She gave me a very haughty look, pursed her lips in a grimace that I think was supposed to impersonate a smile and managed to squeeze out “Happy Holidays” through her gritted teeth.  Emphasis on the word ‘Holidays’. I was honestly surprised. I gave her a sad smile and said “No, I think I’d rather have a Merry Christmas.”  And I left.

Of course, on the way to my car I thought of all sorts of witty and heart-changing comments I could have made. I really wish I’d been quick enough to say something like “Thank You!  Christmas is the Holiday I celebrate, and I appreciate your support!” And then I began thinking that wishing someone a Merry Christmas should not constitute an act of war.  I mean, the birth of Christ was heralded by Angels singing in the Heavens about ‘Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men’.  Isaiah prophesied about the child who would lead them to a world where the lion and the lamb would lie down together.  How could any rational, thinking person be offended by someone wishing them a Merry Christmas?

I honestly think if I’d wished this young woman a Happy Kwanzaa, she would have brightly smiled and returned the sentiment.  (Even though neither of us is black.)  If I’d wished her a Happy Hanukkah, she probably would have just freaked out.  If I’d said something enlightened and mystical about a blessed Solstice she probably would’ve gone all warm and fuzzy on me!  But I offered the one greeting that she could not bear: the greeting offering eternal peace and joy, given freely to mankind, beginning with the Creator of the Universe taking the form of a tiny babe in a manger.  Yeah, what was I thinking???

Christmas is a holiday that has been grossly distorted by commercialism and greed.  Everyone agrees on that point.  But the bottom line is that it is a celebration of the mystical birth of a Savior.  A Savior who did not offer the condemnation of political correctness, but the gentle love of eternal redemption.  It’s hard to keep that in mind when so many ‘megachurches’ are in the news for various violations of God’s laws, when the media never misses a chance to display and destroy any man or woman of God who has fallen in some way.  American Christianity has become synonomous with hypocrisy and falsehood.  But that has nothing to do with the tiny Baby laid lovingly in a manger in Bethlehem.

I am deeply saddened that saying “Merry Christmas” is actually forbidden in some department stores around the country.  There was a time when even non-Christians accepted the greeting as a joyous gesture of goodwill and peace.  Now, apparently, to wish someone a “Merry Christmas” is to throw down the seasonal gauntlet.