In the morning of Christmas Eve we usually have Christmas tree already decorated. Our mothers finish all the preparations for Christmas Eve Supper.

We try behave very good to be very kind to other people during the whole Christmas Eve because there is a saying in Poland that the way you behave on Christmas Eve will behave the whole New Year.

When the first star appears in the sky, in remembrance of the Star of Bethlehem. The moment that the star appears, everyone exchanges greetings and good wishes and then we sit together with our families to the Christmas Eve Supper. The dinner table is covered with the best white tablecloth with bits of hay underneath as a reminder that Jesus was born in a manger. There is always one place more prepared for someone who may knock on your door and ask for you a place at Christmas table.

We start supper with breaking Christmas wafer- which is specially baked very thin cake. In our families we divide the Christmas wafer among us offering a lot of best wishes.

There is also a custom saying that there should be twelve dishes on the Christmas Eve table representing twelve months of the year. Mass at our No meat is served during the supper. The kinds of dishes depend on region of Poland. However, we always have fish, the best is a carp.

For the first dish we usually have in Poland a soup called “Beetroot soup with mushrooms pockets”. Its ingredients are: red beets, onion, garlic, dried mushrooms and flavouring. To make so called “mushrooms pockets” which are in the “beetroot soup” you need flour, mushrooms, onions, nuts, oil, one egg, some salt and pepper.

A typical Silesian dish is “moczka”. To make it you need nuts, gingerbread, a little of flour, butter, salt, sugar and lemon juice. All these products are cooked and mixed in a special way and you should add some flavouring. When “moczka” is ready it should be served very cold or hot.

Very popular dish in other regions of Poland is “kutya”. The dish made with grain, nuts or raisins and honey. Often there is a twelve fruits in honour of the Apostles. In the previous days the father of the family took one spoon of “kutya” and threw it to the ceiling of the room. If a lot of “kutya” stuck to the ceiling it meant that the family would have a lot of good luck and big harvest next years.

For the second dish we usually eat some kind of fish together with “Christmas cabbage”. It is made from sauerkraut, mushrooms, butter, onions, some salt and pepper.

We also make from Christmas lots of different sweets. The most popular in Poland are “honey-cakes”. There are very different shapes of them. We need to make them: butter, honey, sugar, flour, baking powder, cacao, eggs and powdered sugar.