Opłatek — A Christmas Tradition
Not being Polish myself, I was not familiar with the beautiful Polish Christmas-Eve tradition of sharing a thin unleavened wafer, approximately 3″ x 6″ in size, called opłatek (pronounced: o-PWAH-tek). The plural is opłatki (pronounced: o-PWAHT-kee).The opłatki are stamped with Christmas scenes. I was charmed when some Polish friends introduced me to this tradition.
Christmas Eve is called Wigilia in Polish (pronounced: vee-GI-lya, with a hard ‘g’ as in “go” and a short ‘i’ as in “it”). Two of our authors, Rulka Langer and Julian Kulski, describe the traditions of Wigilia in their “Christmas Under German Occupation” blog posts.
When the first evening star appears in the sky, the family (or other group who has come together for Christmas Eve) gathers around the dining room table. After grace is said, the opłatek is shared.
Traditionally, the male head of the household first shares with his wife, expressing his love and good wishes for her. She breaks off a small piece and eats it, and offers it to her husband, in turn expressing her love and good wishes for him. He breaks off a small piece and eats it, and then offers it in turn to the next oldest person at the table with his love and good wishes—and so on to each person around the table according to age, breaking additional wafers as needed.
In many families, however, each member receives their own opłatek, and shares it with each other member of the family, again expressing love and good wishes for the recipient.
Even the family pets can share in this lovely ritual, in remembrance of the animals present in the manger to witness Christ’s birth. Humans share white opłatki, while colored opłatki (frequently pink) are reserved for family pets and other animals.
Some more info and a few sources:
http://folklore.usc.edu/oplatki-polish-ceremony/
https://www.catholiccompany.com/content/Oplatki-Christmas-Tradition
https://inhisname.com/catholic-information-center/oplatek-christmas-wafer-tradition
https://www.zieglers.com/blog/oplatki-christmas-wafers-a-rich-christmas-tradition-with-deep-roots/
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