First published Dec. 24, 2007.
Christmas Eve is the most wonderful night of the year for Polish Catholics and when I walked to the local Polish grocery store this morning, the place was packed with people waiting to pick up meat at the butcher's counter for tonight's feast.
Traditionally, Christmas Eve is a meatless meal, with twelve courses - one for each month of the year. But there was plenty of kielbasa, wrapped up in brown butcher's paper for the trip home.
"I'm new to the neighborhood. Is there a Midnight Mass anywhere?" I asked the woman standing in line ahead of me. (She looked just like my Aunt Agnes, my godmother.)
"I don't know, I don't live here," she said apologetically. "I just come here for the kielbasa."
Watching those Polish faces in the store brought back memories of Christmas Eves past at my grandmother's house on Terrace Street. The Polish Christmas Eve is called Wigilia (meaning "the vigil") and it's aptly named. I remember being such a hungry little kid and waiting and waiting and waiting, because you can't eat until the first star (Gwiazdka, in honor of the Star of Bethlehem) comes out.
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