MONIKA ISKANDAR and DAMIAN A. ZACZEK

In Poland, Christmas is associated with snow, the Christmas Eve vigil supper, presents under the Christmas tree, and with carols. The family should sit down to the supper with the appearance of the first star in the night sky. Everyone at the table must try at least a little of each of the 12 traditional dishes. The table should also be laid with a spare place for an unexpected guest. This is the Polish tradition. Monika, lets talk about how Christmas is celebrated outside Europe.
Snow, frost, and Christmas trees – these attributes of Christmas seem for me to be something time-honoured and permanent. It is hard for us Poles to imagine a traditional Polish vigil supper in thirty degree heat. All suggestions that somewhere in the world Christmas coincides with the hottest part of the year seem rather out of place. Moreover, in certain regions of Poland, where Catholics and Orthodox live side by side, there is an old debate going on regarding the “authenticity” of Christmas, in others words, the date when Jesus’ birth should be celebrated. The argument which seems to decide which side is right is actually provided by the weather: the most authentic festivities are the ones held when there is a deep layer snow and a slight frost. I will admit that for a long time this reasoning seemed to be the most sensible. That is, until the moment when life forced me to reconsider my views.

You spent this holiday that is most strongly associated with the family several times in exotic countries. What surprised you the most in their customs?
In 2001, I had to take a work trip to Argentina at the beginning of December. I was hoping to finish all the things I needed to do within two weeks at most and that I would be back in Poland for Christmas. I did not factor in the mentality of the Argentines or the South Americans generally. By the middle of December, I had actually not yet really started doing what I was supposed to in Argentina. The return to Poland for the holiday turned out to be impossible. I journalist friend invited me to spend Christmas with him and his family in the villa district of Buenos Aires.
On Christmas Eve, Juan came in the morning to collect me from my hotel. We had to drive through the entire centre of town to get to his house. Bored, I looked out of the windows at the Christmas decorations on shops and in the streets. Nothing original – just like the rest of the global village: Christmas trees, reindeer, Santa Claus and the obtrusive sounds of American carols. But when we got to the district where my friend was living, everything changed. Instead of kitsch festive decorations, I found trees and shrubs covered in a light white powder. How was it, there was suddenly snow in Argentina in December? Juan explained that it was cotton wool.

In Poland, Christmas trees are often decorated in cotton wool pretending to be snow. But let us talk about Argentinean dishes and customs.
I did not expect any carp or borsch with dumplings, but I was certain than in the “overall context” of the spread there would be something to remind me of the Christmas Eve suppers in Poland. After all, Argentina is a Catholic country. I was completely wrong. We sat down at the dinner table not in the evening but during the night after returning from midnight mass. There was, of course, no breaking or sharing of wafers. Instead, a roast peacock ornamented with multicoloured plumes occupied a central position on the dinner table, which was itself standing illuminated in the garden. I was under the impression that I had suddenly found myself at some feast in Versailles. Nevertheless, the main dish of the vigil meal was steak filled with a stuffing of onions, meat and hard boiled eggs.

I must admit I have never heard of eating peacock. And what happened when present-giving time came?
I prepared, as we do in Poland, some small presents for all of Juan’s family members, but I did not entirely know when and how I should give them out. So eventually, I asked my host. “Not today.” – laughed Juan. – “But I don’t know if you will bear with us until the 6th of January.” It transpired that in Argentina, the Christmas gifts are brought by the three kings (the Magi), who leave them in shoes left under a Christmas tree, but only if you leave a little hay and water outside the front door for their far-journeying and tired camels. I did not, of course, intend to stay with Juan until the 6th of January, so I gave out the Christmas presents when leaving his hospitable home. Despite the lack of snow and the wholly different customs, one aspect was the same as in Poland; the family atmosphere of Christmas.

Despite the varying climates, this spirit is found in many homes around the world. How did you celebrate in Lebanon, an Islamic country?
It so happened that I also spent the next Christmas away from Poland. Ghassan, my Lebanese friend, invited me to spend the holiday in Beirut. Leaving the airport, we drove through the city at night but we could not see the slightest sign of Christmas approaching. But this is quite natural; after all, in Islam Jesus is only one of many prophets who came before the birth of the greatest prophet Mohammed. Only when we got to the Christian districts did any Christmas decorations appear, although they were very disappointing; the same kitsch which you can find anywhere in the world: lights, bells, Santa Claus figures, decorative chains, even reindeer-driven sleighs flashed past at one point.

In which tradition were the celebrations at Ghassan’s home: Catholic or Moslem?
At Ghassan’s, I felt the waft of something exotic. In Poland, the holiday is filled with the fragrance of almonds, nuts, poppy seeds and mushrooms. But there, everything was surrounded by a strong aroma of aniseed, which was liberally used to flavour all the Christmas dishes. The sitting room had a beautiful large Christmas tree. Under the tree there was a “maghara” or a grotto with the Baby Jesus, Joseph and Mary, as well as shepherds, an ox and a donkey. It was almost as if I was viewing a Polish nativity scene, but instead of a thatched shed there was a rocky grotto.

If the nativity scene was similar to what we have in Poland, can I assume that the vigil dinner was similar too?
The previous year’s experiences in Argentina taught me to expect something unusual. However, here again I was disappointed. The Christmas Eve dinner very much reminded me of those which I know from French novels. The main dish was roast turkey flavoured with aniseed, with which we drank the Lebanese wine ksara and azoury arrack liquor. For dessert, Ghassan’s wife produced buche de noel, a cake which is served in France. Just before midnight, the whole family changed into new best clothes, specially bought for the occasion of the midnight mass. Ghassan explained that since we were going to be praising the birth of Jesus and the coming of a new era in the history of the world, then it was not fitting to celebrate it in old clothes. Punctually at midnight all the bells started to ring in all of the Christian churches.

This is probably the only common feature of all midnight masses around the world: the time that it starts at.
Not only, as the actual ceremony is largely the same. In the church which we visited the bell was swung by a teenage boy pulling a chord. The church looked very Spartan. For a moment I felt as if I had gone back in time to the era of the first Christians and their services held down in the catacombs. The only decoration in the temple was a “maghara” which was standing slightly to the side and was much larger and more impressive than the one in Ghassan’s house. Here, I at last felt that I was spending Christmas away from Poland, in an Arabic country because the midnight mass was being said in this language. But it only became very unusual when the hymns started to be sung in Aramaic, which was the language spoken by Christ.

Did you also have an interesting experience again with presents?
When we were returning home after the mass, Ghassan reminded his children to hang up red socks by their beds because otherwise Santa Claus would not have anywhere to leave them sweets. In the morning, apart from the shrieks of the children who had found all sorts of confections in their socks, I was awoken by the sound of singing. Instead of from a minaret, it was coming from the speakers of the nearby church that we had visited for midnight mass, reminding everyone that “Christ has been born for us”. This song was also a call for families to sit down to the celebratory Christmas breakfast.
When leaving Beirut a few days later, it was hard for me to avoid getting the impression that Christmas in Lebanon is a mixture of local, French and, unfortunately, American traditions. Maybe, if I had been there a few years earlier or if I had spent the holiday with a less Europeanised family, I might have felt a stronger sense of the exotic.

During which foreign trip did you feel the strongest sense of yearning during Christmas time?
The biggest disappointment for me was Christmas in Japan. I spent it in Sapporo with a Polish-Japanese family I had befriended. I was expecting something very exotic, because the wife was Japanese, and usually it is the woman who imposes the dominating tradition in the home. Let me first explain that the Japanese came across the Christmas tradition for the first time in the 16^th century, with the arrival in Japan of Christian missionaries. It was for them yet another manifestation of the arrivals’ barbarity. Later on, the attitude of the Japanese to the Christmas tradition as well as everything else than was European, changed somewhat, but it was only in the 2^nd half of the 20^th century that Christmas (Kurisumasu) became popular. The fascination with American culture probably had a decisive effect. Anyway, when driving along the streets of Japanese cities during Christmas time, you have the impression that you are suddenly on Fifth Avenue in New York. American kitsch attacks from all sides: the shop windows display teams of reindeer harnessed to sleighs and at the entrances to large stores a Santa Claus welcomes those entering with a “Ho, ho, ho!”, and the deafening sound of “Jingle Bells” envelopes everything.

Well, that is just like in Warsaw!
Not quite. According to my Japanese friends, originally Christmas was a time for office parties but then during the eighties Christmas Eve became also a day for very romantic dates and for young peoples’ parties. In truth, although only 2% of Japanese are Christians, and Christmas is not a day which is free from work, nevertheless many people use the occasion to give small gifts to their relatives and friends and sit down with them to a Christmas meal. The vigil supper at my friend’s house very much reminded me of a Polish Christmas Eve meal, although it obviously included a number of typically Japanese dishes and the mushroom-filled “pierogis” similarity to what we have in Poland, was only in name. However, the most important part of the whole Christmas Eve dinner was the kurisumasu-keeki, a richly decorated cake with Christmas wishes written over it.