Come the first evening star in the sky and what happens? In the Polish tradition Wigilia begins... a table is set with a white cloth over a bed of hay, symbolising the hay in the manger and the white cloth Mary swaddled Jesus in. The oplatek is in the center of the table and we all take some of it and wish good tidings and blessings to each other as we share it. Leona loved the oplatek. Traditionally you have 12 dishes of fish but we only have 3 courses, one of fish and our table did not have hay undter it but we did lay the oplatek on hay. This year grandad was with us aswell, he seemed to enjoy it. We then open presents, being part English part Polish we open the prezzies from Polish relatives on the eve and the English ones on the day. After watching Blackadder christmas carol (not a traditional Polish activity) we went to midnight mass with my dad to Holy Cross. Fr Pat talked about the gifts the three wise men brought and how sometimes we can be given gifts that we are not sure how to use, but also the lambs brought by the shepherds... maybe a meal for Mary and Joseph, an apparently more useful gift, but showing us the importance of remembering those who are less fortunate than oursleves, the shepherds themselves were poor but gave what they could. We thought of those who were homeless but also those who have no-one at this time.

We all played with the band, a timeless classic run by Arther and Kathleen, it was great to see Gwedalin and Dermot there too. Kathleen occasionally got carried away when she forgot how many verses she had played and I am sure the congragation had found the hymns before Arther had anounced it she "whispered" them too him so loudly :o)

Christmas day though we were back and forth like yo yo's the day did not go by too fast and we got to see everyone and we did not feel like we were rushing too much, we had a wonderful christmas day!

Boxing day came and as is traditional we went to see the morris dancing at Brantingham, it was all really good and I was encouraged to join the garland side, which Nat goes too. By the time that ended we went back to my parents for dinner and a few games. Tommorrow I think we will have a day in!