Ukrainian Christmas Eve

According to the old-world Julian calendar, today is Christmas. We celebrated Ukrainian Christmas Eve last night. The night starts with a meal of 12 (symbolizing the Apostles) meatless dishes. We don’t quite have 12 dishes but we try to stay as close to tradition as possible.

The first dish is kutia (pictured here). It is a blend of wheat, poppyseed and honey symbolizing fertility and abundance. We follow that with pea soup and garlic toast (pictured here). According to all the literature, the soup should be borscht, but Baba Zolkewich always made pea soup so that’s what we do. Next we move on to pickerel, herring and perogies. The meal ends with stewed fruit.

For the children, the highlight of the night is diving under the table for treats. Before supper, straw is placed under the table to symbolize the manger. We all tuck our toes into the warm straw while we eat. After the dishes are cleared, we hide candies, money and small gifts in the straw, lower the lights, and call the kids in to scramble under the table to collect the bounty. I’m happy to report that bumped heads were kept to a minimum this year.