Excerpt: Poland’s Poland Blog

One of Post-Standard’s 2009 Teens of Achievement, Beatrice Walton writes from Poland with a touching “Open Christmas Letter Home.” Beatrice currently resides as an exchange student with her host family in Wola Batorska, Poland. Beatrice will spend five more months in Poland before returning home to attend Harvard University, studying government and economics.

Here is Beatrice’s letter:

Wesołych Świąt Bożego Narodzenia!  (Merry Christmas!)

I hope this note finds everyone in good health and spirits, having just enjoyed a peaceful, good food-filled Christmas.  Though I miss everyone dearly, I am happy to report that I am just that–happy.  Christmas here was a dream.

A funny thing happened to me this holiday season.  I actually had a chance to fully appreciate and celebrate Christmas.  I guess being forced into contemplative meditation during 5 Catholic Christmas masses over the course of 4 days with my host family did me a relative amount of good, even if I couldn’t understand the priest.

Perhaps what I’ve noticed most these past few weeks is that Christmas in Poland is, well, all so very—genuine.  It’s not nearly as commercial or superficial as I’m accustomed to.  So much so that I was caught off guard when my gifts for my host parents surpassed the normal level of gift giving, leading to my own discomfiture.

In Poland, holiday energy is focused around Wigilia, December 24^th, and the immense preparation for it.  Leading up to Christmas Eve, everyone makes his or her “preparations” for Wigilia–preparations in the form of pine trees, carp, cabbage (while out running on the 23^rd, I noticed the streets near my house reeked with the subtle stench of cabbage), beets, desserts, home, and, of course, mind.

After a full day of cleaning, cooking, and Catholic-dictated fasting, my host family and I sat down to a delicious, meatless 12-course meal.  Minus the carp, I enjoyed everything.  Included in the lineup were two different types of borscht soup, cabbage naleśniki (sort of like crepes), gołumpki (better known in the Walton family as grandma’s “pigs in blankets”), cabbage, kasia (rice-like dish, ours included plums), homemade compote drink, piernik (gingerbread), spicy fruitcake, layer cake, and several other dishes I can’t remember right now.

We set the table with a full setting for my host sister, Zuzanna, who is currently on exchange in Alaska (“could I borrow Zuzanna’s spoon, please?”).  Cutting through the holiday cheer, an underlying solemn understanding of distance silently prevailed.

Prior to feasting, my host mother read the nativity passage from the Bible before we all took part in an important Polish tradition, breaking opłatek (thin white wafers depicting religious icons or scenes) together while offering Christmas wishes.  At this, I broke down.

As my host mother embraced me to wish me Merry Christmas, she told me (in Polish of course) that she hopes when I return home I will become an ambassador and come back to Europe.  As she went on saying the nicest things, uncontrolled tears streamed down my face.  I looked up only to find my host father with tears in his eyes as well.

Yet what was different about this bout of sadness was that it was in opposition to what I expected to feel this holiday season.  I expected to be upset about not being home.  But in actuality, I was only crying over the realization that this Christmas might very well be the only one I will ever spend with my Polish family and the fact that my weeks living with them in Wola Batorska are most likely numbered now to just a few.

There are so many memories of my Christmas in Poland that I’ll cherish for years:  Pasterka (midnight mass on Christmas Eve with my host family), streaming an unconscionable number of lights around the fake choinka (Christmas tree) with my host brother, watching the szopka contest in the rynek, the holiday lights of Krakow at night, and of course, spending time with my friends and family here.

Five months more, it seems, is not nearly enough time to be in Poland.

Learn more about Beatrice Walton here.

Read Beatrice’s blog, which includes her Christmas photos from Poland, here.