Dear All,

As Christmas time is approaching, we would like to wish you all the best. May these holidays be a warm time spent with your loved ones, full of health and happiness. We hope that both this Christmas and the upcoming year of 2026 are filled with peaceful moments, so needed in this fast-paced world.

We hope to see you in the next year!

Polish Christmas traditions

Christmas in Poland is celebrated not only by people of Christian faith, but by most of the population - around 96% of respondents declare to celebrate Christmas Eve in some way. There are two aspects of Polish Christmas traditions that distinguish them from most European countries.

The first one is that the most important day out of the three Christmas Days is actually the Christmas Eve itself. That is the day when people meet with their loved ones, prepare food for the evening and eat supper together. After the elegant supper, the gifts that are usually put under the Christmas tree are being unpacked (as opposed to unpacking them on the Christmas Day, as is done in e.g. Great Britain). 

The second aspect is that all the dishes for the Christmas Eve supper are vegetarian. There should be no meat eaten on that day. Traditionally, there are twelve different dishes on the table, varying depending on the region. The most common ones include barszcz (borscht), dumplings with cabbage and mushrooms and fried carp - but there are many peculiar dishes as well, such as a compot consisting of dried fruits eaten with white beans (typical for the Lesser Poland Voivoideship).

Korean Christmas

In Korea, Christmas is mostly treated as a time for couples, similiar to Valentine's Day. People go out on all sorts of dates, including even weekend getaways. There are, of course, Christmas decorations and an encouragement to buy gifts for the loved ones, but it's usually of a much smaller scale than the gifts for Chuseok (kor. 추석, Korean Thanksgiving Day). The most commonly eaten dish during this time is the Christmas cake - a shortbread cake with strawberries (which are in season in winter). Chuseok is one of the holidays when families gather together, spend some quality time, eat traditional Korean food and play traditional Korean games, whereas Christmas is a couples' day. However, you can also find Jesus' Birthday cafe pop-ups in Seoul, open during those few days of December, where Christian Koreans try to celebrate Christmas with others.

Sources:

Ariadna Nationwide Research Panel (article on Polish Christmas statistics in Polish)

Polish Christmas traditions (Culture.pl article 'How to Survive a Polish Christmas')

Christmas in Korea (Korea JoongAng Daily article)