Christmas Eve, polish style

our family is Polish so our christmas celebrations begin on Christmas Eve. we call Christmas Eve "Wigilia" (pronounced Va-lee-ya...i may not have the correct spelling). traditionally, Wigilia begins when the first star is spotted in the sky and lasts until well after midnight mass. we usually have some traditional food like Pierogies and Kielbasa, but never fish soup! this year, we are having meatballs. we don't celebrate it up like we used to. Hino is grown and Dzadzu has died, our pets have all passed away. Maniac Mike is in prison and he has never experienced a Polish christmas but i know he will love it.

we used to have a hell of a time trying to explain to Hinoserm why Santa comes a day early to our house and on the 25th to other kids' houses. we told him he goes to the Polish houses first and to explain how Santa knows which houses belong to Poles, my sister made up a story about the magic light in the window that signals Santa to come to our house first.

we also had a hell of a time getting Hino to believe in Santa. we had a particularly hard time one christmas. he didn't believe. then he woke up christmas morning to find that one of Santa's reindeer puked on the special Santa rug by the firepace. we left out carrots for the reindeer and the puke had carrot bits in it, so Hino believed Santa (or atleast the reindeer) stopped by to fill the stockings (we opened stocking on christmas day).

one year, Hino's uncle dressed up as Santa but Hino knew who it really was. we asked him how he knew and Hino said "Santa" was wearing Uncle's watch!

another year, i convinced my boyfriend to don a Santa suit to deliver his gift of a soldering iron (i think Hino was 6 or 7 years old and he wanted a soldering iron real bad. a geek even then!). so, Santa stopped by and dropped off the soldering iron. when Hino opened the box, it was a Chia Pet. damn, he was even excitied about that! anyway, we had to call Santa to tell him he left the wrong present and Santa came back and delivered the soldering iron. the iron was used, so we told Hino that that was a special soldering iron, one that the elves usued to make toys and stuff. ha!

poor Hino. we really gaslighted that poor kid!