Christmas Eve: An Original Memoir Poem

I’ve already begun food preparations for our family’s Christmas Eve dinner. We still dine on traditional Polish foods on December 24th. Fish and pierogis, which look a lot like Chinese potstickers, are what we eat—no meat on Christmas Eve. One of the traditional dishes we don’t eat any longer is jellied carp. EW!!!

Yesterday, I prepared the stuffing for the potato and onion pierogis. Today, I’m going to get to work on the stuffing for the mushroom pierogis—which I make with mascarpone cheese and mushroom duxelles. This weekend my daughter, my two nieces, and I will be stuffing about 150 pierogis. (One of my nieces is going to make the potato and cheese pierogis at her house.) Then we’ll freeze all the pierogis and cook them up just before our Christmas Eve feast.

My older niece, who will be our holiday hostess, will bake haddock and scallops. We’ll also have pickled herring. We’ll serve the fish and pierogis with sour cream, horseradish, and my niece’s delicious homemade tartar sauce.

When I was young, my maternal grandparents hosted the family Christmas Eve dinner. It was always a magic night for me. I loved gathering together with my grandparents, aunts, my uncle, and my first cousins. We always had such fun together. We kids would stuff ourselves with pierogis. We’d dance around the house while my Uncle Benny played his accordion. We’d exchange presents—and share a lot of laughs.

Here’s a memoir poem I wrote about a typical Christmas Eve at my grandparent’s house. The details are still clear in my mind after more than half a century.


CHRISTMAS EVE
By Elaine Magliaro

Just after sunset the whole family gathers
in my grandparents’ kitchen.
My father, Uncle Benny, and Dzidzi
bring up the spare table and chairs from the cellar.
Babci spreads white cloths printed with red ribbons
and bright green wreaths over the two tables.
Then she lays out platters of pierogis,
pillows of homemade dough
stuffed with fluffy mashed potatoes and onions
or sauerkraut, a bowl of jellied carp,
pickled herring smothered in onions,
and small dishes of horseradish
tinted pink with beet juice.
Before eating we stand around the table.
Dzidzi breaks the oplatek,
the thin white wafer blessed by the priest.
When everyone has taken a piece,
Dzidzi gives his blessing,
“May we all be happy, healthy,
and together in the year to come.”

***************

Amy has the Poetry Friday Roundup at The Poem Farm.

Christmas Poems & A Christmas Video

I'm re-posting several of my original Christmas poems that have appeared at Wild Rose Reader in the past. I also have Christmas Eve Polka, a poem I wrote for my unpublished collection of memoir poems--A Home for the Seasons. Christmas Eve has always been the special holiday time for my family. We make traditional foods like pierogis for our Christmas Eve dinner. We eat no meat. We exchange gifts--and celebrate family.

When I was young, we gathered at the home of my maternal grandparents early on Christmas Eve. My Babci and Dzidzi had six grandchildren--all girls. We had a grand time together--eating, laughing, dancing around when my Uncle Benny played his accordion. I wrote Christmas Eve Polka in memory of my uncle--who always took time to make his four nieces feel like special people--and the happy times I spent at my grandparents' house on Christmas Eve.

I've also included a special Christmas video for you


Christmas Eve Polka

After dinner
Uncle Benny opens his black instrument case
and lifts out his accordion.
He stretches it open, presses it closed.
We listen to it breathe and sigh.
He straps it over his broad shoulders.
Then he taps his right foot
on the shiny yellow linoleum,
sways from side to side
and makes it sing.
We polka out of the kitchen,
across the tiny parlor,
and down the narrow hallway
back into the kitchen.
Round and round
we dance through the house
making circles of laughter,
making circles of love.


Wrapped around itself,
Red-ribboned
Evergreen, fragrant of winter forests,
Adorned with berries, baubles, bells of gold,
Tacked to the front door...
Home for the holidays.

Trimmed with tinsel, bedecked with shiny bulbs,
Ribboned with red satin, strung with bright lights—
Each twinkling like an earthbound star in an
Evergreen sky.


Santa snaps the reins. Red-nosed Rudolph

Leads the team of reindeer this early winter

Eve. Up, up

Into the sky with a cargo of Christmas

Gifts and goodies they rise, weaving through clouds. Can you

Hear the merry jingle of their silver bells?

Candy Cane

Wrapped in a cellophane of sound:
a striped stick of sweetness,
red as Rudolph’s nose,
white as Santa’s beard.
Crinkle open your peppermint present.
Let your tongue celebrate
the wintry taste of Christmas.


Things to Do If You If You Are a Bell

Ride on a reindeer’s harness.
Tinkle in the icy air.
Jingle across milk-white snow.
Sing with a silver tongue.


THE CHRISTMAS BABKA

We watch Babci make the Christmas babka.
With plump peasant hands
she kneads sweet dough
on the white porcelain-topped table,
places it in a large sky-blue bowl,
covers it with a damp towel,
and sets it on the kitchen counter
near the hissing radiator.
Swelling with bubbles of air,
the dough rises into a pale yellow cloud
flecked with bits of orange rind.
The baking babka fills the house
with the scent of Christmas.
We eat the bread fresh from the oven,
its insides steaming and golden—a homemade treasure
rich enough to warm a winter night.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

At Blue Rose Girls, I have a video of Judy Garland singing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and a special Elf Yourself greeting.

The Poetry Friday Roundup is at Book Aunt.