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 dinner with stuffing, gravy and sometimes forcemeat, pigs in blankets, cranberry sauce or redcurrant jelly, bread sauce, roast potatoes (sometimes also boiled or mashed), vegetables (usually boiled or steamed), particularly Brussels sprouts and carrots; dessert consists of Christmas pudding (or plum pudding), sometimes mince pies, Christmas cake or trifle, with brandy butter and/or cream. Italian regional traditions are varied. They are polarised in two areas: Northern Italy and Southern Italy (from Rome southwards). Moreover, often the Christmas Eve Supper is more important than the Christmas Dinner, because the Holy Mass is celebrated at midnight.<br> The primo is usually a kind of