Christmas dinner most Poles spend the day feasting with their family. The Christmas meal is elaborate, served in the evening on 24 December, offering large quantities of food. This Christmas Eve meal is called Wigilia. After the first star appears in the sky, everyone shares the Christmas wafer (opłatek) and wishes good things for the coming year. Then supper begins. The meal is meatless, honouring Catholic tradition. Many households also prepare a great variety of special Christmas dishes, typically numbering 12 in honor of the 12 apostles. Dishes include: stuffed carp, fried carp, herring in wine sauce, herring in cream sauce, fruit
Christmas in Sweden Christmas Eve there are two public holidays: "juldagen" (Christmas Day) and "annandag jul" (Boxing Day). Most of the families have holiday and are free from work, but some workplaces can start the work again in the days before New Year's Eve. After the New Year's Eve the schools usually have at least a week before the spring term starts, but workplaces often start the work again a couple of days after the new year. The story of the Christmas tree begins in Germany in the 16th century. During the 17th and 18th centuries the Christmas tree started being dressed with