The Wigilia
My ethnic background is Polish. Most of my great-grandparents were born in the old country and immigrated, most of my grandparents were born here. My family kept the old Polish traditions for as long as possible.
The big celebration wasn't Christmas Day, but Christmas Eve. The entire house is clean and immaculate and decorated beforehand. Like a New Year's ritual, it was thought that clean on Christmas Day meant clean and prosperous throughout the following year. My mother never did anything by half-measures. Our house was a 'winter wonderland'. The weather plays a factor as well, it's a 'good' Christmas if it's lightly snowing.
The nativity scene is complete, except the manger is empty. Jesus doesn't get put into the creche until after midnight mass. The table is strewn with a handful of straw, to represent that Jesus was born in a stable, a white tablecloth covers the table and the tablecloth is sprinkled with holy water. A bit of straw is placed in each corner of the room. I've heard some families actually fold the straw into crosses, but we never did. In some families, you're supposed to be able to fortell the future by the color and length of straw you draw from under the tablecloth, but we never did that.
The table was set with one extra chair, which depending on who you asked, represented deceased relatives, the presence of God in the house, or hospitality, an extra seat for a stranger. Technically, you're not supposed to have an odd number of people at the table, but since the family was all married couples plus me, the chair made it an even number.
First is the oplatek, a thin unleavened wafer. Picture a communion wafer as a 3x4" rectangle stamped with a religious picture instead of IHS. Christmas scenes were the most common, with the creche, or the angel with the shepherds, or the three magi. You offer it to a family member, who breaks off a piece and pronounces his wish for you in the upcoming year. He then offers his to you and you do the same. After you've 'broken bread' with everyone at the table, the remaining wafer can be eaten with honey. I actually grew to despise this ritual, as the family sociopath thought it was incredibly funny to insult me as part of the wish.
The meal is exactly 13 dishes, one for each person at the Last Supper. It's meatless. Dishes include mushroom soup (imported mushrooms from Poland, $200/lb, shipped dried and re-hydrated in the soup, I never had the meal at any other time of year), borsch (beet soup with potatoes), sledzie (pickled herring), fried fish (generally two kinds which counted as two different dishes), pierogi (dumplings stuffed with cottage cheese, or saurkraut, or plums as a dessert), kapusta (lima beans and saurkraut), compote (dried fruitcake), yams, green bean casserole, kluski (bowtie pasta with poppy seeds), no alcohol, just coffee (milk for me) and plasek (coffee cake) afterwards.
After dinner, folks socialize until it's time to go to Shepherd's Mass at midnight. As you leave, a piece of chalk is used to mark KMB on the doorframe. (Kasper, Melchior, and Balthazar, the three Magi) Technically, you're supposed to do this on Epiphany (Jan 6th) when they actually came, but most folks did it ahead of time. In church, the manger scene should also be missing the baby Jesus. After mass, the infant is put into place. When you get home, you're supposed to add the baby to your manger scene.
Poles take pride in their creches. The simplest is generally Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus. After that, you add the ox and ass, three magi, their camels, shepherds and sheep, the little drummer boy, the angel that floats above (generally on a red ribbon), innocent children, etc.
While some folks go to bed, others have an early Christmas breakfast. Scrambled eggs, kabasa (polish sausage), salmon (occassionally one of the other fishes from last night), marinated pasta salad, gingerbread, coffee and leftovers.
This year, we're going to be starting a new tradition. We're having 'dinner' with mother in the nursing home around noon.
Times change, customs change with them.