New Year under pressure with resolutions. Episode 30

Monika Rachtan
You are guests at my Christmas Eve party, so it would be inappropriate for me not to ask who else has a cheesecake, who fancies it.

Kasia Bosacka
Looking so miserable, I'm sure he'll eat another bite, right?

Adam Kowalewski
I actually look miserable, but that may be a bit later.

Monika Rachtan
No, no, absolutely. There will be borscht, ravioli, cheesecake later. It has to be now.

Adam Kowalewski
Good. A small piece please.

Kasia Bosacka
And I won't refuse either. I'm really asking.

Monika Rachtan
OK. OK, I'll run to the kitchen now. I'll prepare everything perfectly. This Christmas must be perfect. And these are the kinds of conversations that very often take place at the tables of Poles. Inconvenient questions When's the next baby? When's the wedding? How about another cheesecake? How do you get through them in a relaxed manner? Well, that's what we're going to talk about in the programme today. Patient first, and I have invited Kasia Bosacka, who is a journalist, to my programme table on Christmas Eve. Hi Kasia, a warm welcome to Marta Podleśna, who is a traveller. Hi Marta, welcome. Hello and welcome to Adam Kowalewski, who is a psychologist.

Adam Kowalewski
Hello, hello, good evening.

Monika Rachtan
Good evening Kasia. Let me start with you, because you probably know the Poles best when it comes to their habits, especially when it comes to food. We in Poland are very fond of traditional holidays. Most of us have been spending them in the same way for many years. Tell me, where did this tradition come from in the first place? Where did these customs come from?

Kasia Bosacka
It is true that I do observe that there are occasions when sushi ends up on the Christmas Eve table, but it seems to me that this is marginal. Surveys show that we like this traditional Christmas, we are very attached to this tradition, and even if a papal decree abolished fasting on Christmas Eve, we still fast. I know some who don't eat anything until Christmas Eve and are on water alone, which is absurd. There is nothing to eat in the evening. However, you have to eat something small, even a yellow cheese sandwich. The tradition came from there. It has simply been a tradition for several hundred years. If we close our eyes and look at our kitchen in our house and if all the electrical appliances disappear, the fridge is not there. We have a cellar, we just move a few hundred years back. It's in that cellar that there's a barrel of herring in brine, there's sauerkraut, there's pickled cucumbers. There are still some root vegetables we have beans in December, because they are dry. What is dry can also be stored during the winter. We have a pond next door or a neighbour has a pond and in this pond there is carp or there is trout.

Kasia Bosacka
We're making a break, we're just catching Mum's fish. What else? Smoked plums, smoking, drying. These were the traditional pickling methods of preservation imagine.

Monika Rachtan
Now, when we go to the shop and have everything packed in nice foil trays, we have things ready to go straight away. But as you say, it was a very different world.

Kasia Bosacka
This world around the Christmas table has changed a lot. We have modern clothes, we have driven a great car to visit family. On Christmas Eve the poppyseed is heated in the microwave or in the oven. We have induction cookers that cook for us. Thanks to them, we prepare the carp. But what's on the table hasn't changed for hundreds of years, it's the same as it was. And that is why all of a sudden, once a year, all children see is dried mushroom compote and some weird mushroom soup and, on top of that, łazanki with poppy seeds. This poppy seed is also so characteristic of this Christmas. They are simply terrified. Because if they eat something like that once a year, it's hard to get used to it.

Monika Rachtan
But I also think to myself like that, you can explain it, explain it to our audience, explain it to your children probably. But most of us are completely unaware of where this tradition comes from. We don't have any awareness at all, and it's difficult, for example, to explain to children who ask why we drink this dried fruit compote if we don't know ourselves. And I think that my generation, the generation of 30- and 40-year-olds, is already moving further and further away from this tradition, because they don't understand, I'm thinking of 17-year-olds, they don't know anything at all about this tradition, and it's getting a bit blurred. And also there are some people in society who don't like Christmas. They just say we don't like Christmas because this table, because this family, everyone has some kind of grudge. There are some strange conversations at this table, sometimes children ask. That's right.

Adam Kowalewski
Well actually, this Christmas time is very stressful for many people. On the one hand, it's a matter of what you said, which is that we don't understand the traditions, we come. Often we get together, but then we meet in some very family-oriented group and someone expects something from us. And on the one hand we don't want to succumb to some trends, some pressure, conformism, so that I'm not really told what to do. And on the other hand, if I don't understand and I'm expected to do something, then why?

Monika Rachtan
That's right. We are rebelling.

Adam Kowalewski
Definitely. It's just that, you know, it's also often these days where the family doesn't get together as often as they used to. Because if you look back as recently as five or 10 years ago, a lot of Sunday dinners were family dinners, where we'd go to my aunt's, my grandmother's, my other aunt's, and that Sunday was around the table a lot more often. We probably weren't at everyone's house.

Monika Rachtan
They're used to this situation, and now it's like stepping out of their comfort zone a bit.

Adam Kowalewski
And then suddenly we meet after six months or a year, once a year, sometimes at Easter, then suddenly we have a meeting where we interact with people, where someone expects something and then these questions about children or work or important topics. And then we're finally together, They come up and cause a lot of tension. That's just the way it is around the holidays.

Kasia Bosacka
Yes, just my beloved question haha yes something has gained weight recently hahahaha.

Monika Rachtan
And then have that cheesecake one last time so on.

Kasia Bosacka
Retreat. You look too thin, you need to eat.

Adam Kowalewski
And when you slim down, are you by any chance ill? Did something happen? Have you been doing?

Monika Rachtan
Have you done any research recently? We are urging people to do research, so if someone has been thin recently, well, of course it's worth doing research. But just apropos of that post you were talking about Kasia, that some people fast from the morning, see nothing, drink water. I know that you are quite, quite able to explain to us where this fasting on Christmas Eve came from. Can you tell us about it?

Kasia Bosacka
First and foremost, fasting it is.

Marta Podleśna
Abandoning the eating of meat dishes. So that's taken a long time actually, but like Kasia said, the fast was de facto abolished in Poland, which we don't know about. That is to say, there is no official ban on eating meat really, and in fact the Catholic Church did until 2003, which was probably the latest that it was abolished in Poland. At this point it is only a recommendation. On the other hand, our tradition is so deeply rooted and interesting in that we like to fast from time immemorial, and this was also connected with this, with this change of religion, for example, with fish, and some people think that carp has been with us for centuries. It is true that carp was brought here to Poland by the Cistercians from Bohemia in the 12th century, but in fact it was not until after World War II that it was introduced. There were carp slogans on every Polish table because it was a fish that was very easy to raise in ponds and could simply be well distributed. In times like these, you know what they were?

Marta Podleśna
A time when everything was very difficult to access. So carp is really an invention of the last 70 years, not before.

Kasia Bosacka
This is a communist invention. And the idea was that a worker who came back from work would get something for Christmas, and very often it was carp, which unfortunately in those days was just wrapped in newspaper. If the poor thing survived, well it was put into a big bowl or a bathtub, so everybody, even that carp was given out 2 3 weeks before Christmas, so for 2 3 weeks everybody walked around dirty at home. And that's why we have such a communist tradition of this carp. But.

Monika Rachtan
But the two or three weeks before that was because of the way the world was set up at the time, or rather, I know stories like that, that carp have to soak for a fortnight in a bathtub so they don't smell of silt, So they had to soak, Did they not have to?

Marta Podleśna
I think this was more due to the fact that it was the workplaces that gave this carp.

Kasia Bosacka
And they could not.

Marta Podleśna
Give on the day of Christmas Eve. Simply put. So these carp systematically flowed into the workplaces, so they gave it to the workers as gifts. So that's why the carp floated in the bathtub for a week, for example.

Kasia Bosacka
But it is indeed the case that an honest farmer will fish the carp out of the set. The carp is a fish that feeds on the bottom of the pond, eats fly larvae, insect larvae, so it is altogether useful to us humans. On the other hand, as it swallows this ooze along with these larvae, it also passes through this ooze. This is why an honest seller will move a carp two to three weeks before the sale to a hard-bottomed pool, where it only drinks water, is on a diet, is simply starving.

Monika Rachtan
This is also very interesting and worth being aware of. This is how it should be. Can this be checked somehow?

Kasia Bosacka
There is a certificate called Mr Karp, and it is a certificate of such honest breeders who have accompanied themselves. And we as consumers should look for this certificate.

Monika Rachtan
Listen, what does it look like for you at Christmas? Do you prepare too much food? Do you have experiences where, after Christmas, the fridge is full to the brim and you don't feel like eating those dumplings anymore?

Adam Kowalewski
You know what, I'm lucky that at my place my mother or my grandmother always prepared, but they prepared a lot of food and that experience was every year. That is, there was so much food that you could feed times three of those people at the table. I don't know what this is entirely due to. I suspect as I've spoken to my grandmother a few times, that they had difficult times, that food wasn't available and that if you managed to get that food at Christmas, there was also a great concern for the family. It was the ability to organise the food and it was really a celebration and a celebration. Also, you didn't know who was coming as guests. There were no phone calls, you didn't know if they were coming on the second day, if they were going to bring something or not. But the hospitality was there. Over the last 10 years, I have seen that there is too much food, too much, and it often stays. Unfortunately, this is my experience.

Monika Rachtan
Kasia You cook a lot, how is it with you?

Kasia Bosacka
At my place everything disappears because I have a big family. Indeed, there are sometimes as many as twenty-somethings around the table and, in fact, we've been making just our family evergreen for years now. So there are certainly pierogi. Pierogi, because she adds poppy seeds with cabbage and mushrooms to the dough and there's a sea of ruski. And I have to tell you that even if I raided thousands of them with the kids, I'd still do them with pride because it's their favourite dish. We don't try to make too much of this food, and if we do, then of course we share and also share Christmas Eve. That's why I have this feeling that the stress Adam was talking about is also related to the preparations for Christmas, that.

Monika Rachtan
We are afraid that we won't make it, that we won't.

Kasia Bosacka
We manage that it won't clean us, that the windows haven't been washed, that the dog has eaten half the cheesecake. We had a situation like that once, that there were just such teeth left on the cheesecake and it ate it, that the Christmas tree blew down and so on. So it's also a kind of pre-Christmas rush, but I have to say that it's very often our female problem to look at you girls like that, because we women have this fixation in our heads that everything just has to be done and the drawers cleaned and no shelf on the cupboard and we put this burden on ourselves, this hamstring. And then we sit around on Christmas Eve, all happy and content, drinking wine or vodka to go with the herring, and we die because we are so tired, because we have created this fate for ourselves. Don't you get that feeling?

Monika Rachtan
I think that's the case, and what's even worse is that these girls at this table, when everyone comes in, smelling beautiful in their new dresses, in their beautiful hair, in their curls. They sit there like such skimpy clothes and think to themselves geez, I haven't painted my nails again, How do I look at this table? Why have I done so much of this? All in all, I wish they would just go away. I went to bed because I'm so tired. Well, how do you cope with that? Is there any way Adam can get it through his head that clean windows and white curtains are the most important thing at Christmas?

Adam Kowalewski
You know what, I think it's communication before, because I've been going through it at home. I go through it on a daily basis, talking to a lot of people and these standards that we have set for ourselves. Like you said, everything has to be tip top and the dust hasn't been wiped off the TV and suddenly it spoils my Christmas for example, yes. On the other hand, you can. You know, it's that ability to communicate openly with those closest to you. Because if you talk frankly and openly, which is key, how we want to spend this time, you might find that the dishes really only need to be done by half. Of course, to make it twelve, because there's a certain framework we stick to.

Kasia Bosacka
Eleven o'clock bread, twelve o'clock butter and suddenly we have.

Adam Kowalewski
It's a matter of finding out, but really where is this care for interpersonal relationships and whether I actually want to have a relationship or whether it's most important for me to make it look good. But it requires communication and it's not that easy, because especially nowadays, if social media take away our direct contact, if there are a lot of factors that cut us off from even these close relationships, then suddenly such a sincere, open family, a conversation with, for example, your mother or your grandmother in such a context of understanding love is not a simple matter. On the other hand, I think it could be. Maybe it's because I'm a little bit perverted, I like to talk, I like to communicate, I like to be in the truth with the other person, I had such conversations with my grandmother and my mother, because they really raise the standards a lot. We guys sometimes manage to get away and spend longer in the shop because you'd have to go and get a poppy seed or something for the other person's cheesecake. But that's really the impression I get in Poland.

Adam Kowalewski
Women have a very big responsibility and a big standard that was set once before. Well, but it requires openness and that kind of conversation. I've had that conversation with my mum that she says mum, maybe a bit less, maybe a bit different, maybe one cake is enough, because it's going to stay anyway. And even though it allows us to go for a walk, it allows us to sit for a while longer. But it's not that obvious and it's difficult.

Marta Podleśna
It's not so obvious because it's you know, it's so beautiful to listen to and that's what we're aiming for. But I also have this personal one, that when you asked yourself if this food is too much or too little, it also depends on the perspective. According to me, three times too much. According to my mother, ideally. So it's that perspective. And also we had a division a few days ago here, because we are also doing a big Christmas Eve where my sisters are coming and there are also about 20 of us. We are splitting up now. My mum doesn't carry it all on herself, we share quite fairly, even despite this division, so that there's a little bit of this work for everyone, a little bit of this cooking work for everyone, and despite the arrangements, you'll see that it's this perspective that sits somewhere inside and my mum says I'm going to make two cakes anyway, this.

Kasia Bosacka
This is how I will make three meats.

Adam Kowalewski
Why?

Marta Podleśna
Because it's useful, because it's useful. So these arrangements are not entirely respected, but simply this need stemming somewhere, maybe from the poverty in grandma's or great-grandma's earlier years. Yes, maybe from this gathering for winter, that in rich families you just had to gather this food, show up somewhere, it goes down through generations, that you have to gather, you have to have, you have to have a lot.

Kasia Bosacka
Another thing, though, is that it's a festive holiday, so we're trying in two ways, to make it beautiful, to make it delicious, to make it plenty, to make sure there's not enough for anyone, that's also the kind of thinking that's one of the stupidest questions. Thank you, Monica, for not asking the question that journalists ask me. It is this. Ms Catherine, how do you not get fat over Christmas? For which the whole family has come down here, sometimes from all over the world. I haven't seen these people sitting around the table for a long time, it's nice, it's Christmas, presents, carols. And now I'm supposed to wonder how much I ate, why I ate it and whether it shouldn't just be blueberries and lettuce?

Adam Kowalewski
Well, absurd.

Monika Rachtan
But with.

Kasia Bosacka
The other side of holy, But the other side.

Monika Rachtan
Pages this New Year and these New Year's resolutions. And maybe some people are already preparing for it a little bit, because I know these two attitudes. One is, well, I'm going to get lean for Christmas, I'm going to get lean for the new year. And the other attitude is that its already Christmas I think, because after all, I promised myself that from the new year I'm going to start eating better, reducing weight, and that's probably where it comes from. And of course like you say, relationships are the most important thing. In general we are here and now, sitting around the table, talking to each other, eating too. But worrying about what's going to be on the scale tomorrow, well that's where the problem is again. I think it's somewhere else. I'll ask you about it in a minute, but first I'd like to ask Marta. Marta, tell me how these preparations for Christmas look like in other countries or in other countries people are also so fixated on traditions, windows, curtains, shopping and all that, that it has to be tip top. Do they have more of a relaxed attitude though?

Marta Podleśna
Definitely more slack. I too wonder what this is due to. Is it from the mentality or the weather? It's so many factors and it also depends on which continent we are talking about. Maybe I'll mention one, because if we're talking about Christmas, which is a Catholic holiday, the most Catholic continent is South America. After Europe, of course, because it was all carried over by the Spaniards, so Christmas is actually celebrated there. On the other hand, you will also notice that in our country, this Christmas lasts three days, and this is unique in the world, because it is customary in other countries to celebrate this holiday somewhere else - Christmas Eve, or possibly the first day of Christmas. In fact, nowhere does the second day of Christmas have a statutory holiday off, so with us in general, by virtue of the fact that these holidays are long, it's also sort of a call to gather more food and prepare, so some amounts last.

Monika Rachtan
Until 6 January.

Marta Podleśna
Exactly so, usually, let's say here if it is Mexico or Peru, it is Argentina. It is simply a Christmas Eve dinner. And also here you asked about fasting, actually in our country it is traditional to fast, which means eating mainly fish. In South American countries, for example, it is traditional to eat meat. But it's not only in South American countries that lamb or, for example, turkey is eaten, baked with apple mousse in Peru or turkey or chicken in Mexico. There, the traditional Christmas Eve dish is meat. In Argentina it's Asado, which is simply grilled beef, so it's just that these are traditional. These are the traditional dishes that you eat on Christmas Eve and there it's actually dinner, so there's a main course that's also somehow there, for example in Peru, when you roast that big turkey with apple mousse, you often even give it to a special point with a number and you pick it up in the evening so that it's well baked. Not everyone has an oven.

Kasia Bosacka
I can't imagine.

Monika Rachtan
Let go of the most important dish and give it to some place, take a number and then come for it.

Kasia Bosacka
My mother told me that it used to be that bread or cakes were just given to the baker.

Marta Podleśna
It is a question of the wealth of your wallet. We are a rich country. In Peru, on the other hand, the whole of South America is in the developing world and there the middle class has really only been emerging for the last 10 years. When I used to go to Peru, there was this class of very rich people and terribly poor people. So there was no middle class at all. So this middle class who are getting by now and who can afford to go to the mall and buy themselves clothes and not have to count down to one, these are the people who sometimes still don't have ovens in the house. So they are like that. There are countries like that in the world, so our perspective is a European perspective. From my perspective of people who live a really luxurious life, we have access to everything and we can actually go, buy everything, do everything and use it. However, this is not the case everywhere. And here I am still finishing the answer to your question with this busyness. Well, it is not. And it is so very Polish. This is my perspective on the busyness and the general preparations for the holidays, because, for example, it is a very Polish thing.

Marta Podleśna
precisely in South America this Christmas is not the most important at all, Easter is more important, that's first of all. Secondly, it's mainly accumulated on this Christmas Eve, so there's just a main dinner consisting of this turkey. Then there's something sweet, it's always Panettone or turrones , or nougats, something so very sweet. And if you stay longer, there is just the traditional chocolate. Still in the morning, for example, yes, this dinner starts sometimes at 10pm and sometimes at midnight. You wait basically until midnight, because at our place it's already finished. So there is a completely different approach to it all and after dinner is over. You don't even listen to the hoarding and putting it off until the next day. There simply isn't all the busyness, the running around. What's more, there are countries where gifts are also symbolic. They are not a tradition. It may be a gift, a letter, it may be some small gift for children in particular, but there is no tradition that everyone buys everyone a super present. This is also very European I think.

Marta Podleśna
And it's also like a kind of commercialism that is just associated with Christmas, that it has ceased to be or is ceasing to have a form of such spirituality, and is going towards commercialism. And you can just see that too.

Kasia Bosacka
Here we have said these differences, but still, as we all sit around this table, I don't think we would swap our Polish holidays for any other.

Marta Podleśna
And I think it does.

Monika Rachtan
Well, that's what I wanted to ask you, because when you talked about other countries, you kind of woke up the traveller in me, who would like to go somewhere maybe for Christmas. Do you sometimes have such thoughts of dropping everything and going to the Bieszczady?

Kasia Bosacka
Yes.

Marta Podleśna
Everyone has that too.

Adam Kowalewski
To drop everything and the Bieszczady.

Marta Podleśna
But listen, I also asked my friends a question yesterday just about these Christmas trips and everything. Poles in general would love to go away for Christmas, but they don't do it. They just don't do it. What's more, Poles who live abroad, whether in England, Ireland or Spain, in the first years of their stay at least, they always try to return to Poland. And they don't just spend the holiday somewhere far away, they do everything they can to come back to Poland for the holiday. So this Polish tradition, I think, is really unique. The second factor is that the financial issue, that a holiday somewhere away, they will incur a lot of expense. So, however, family and this tradition here is the most important thing for us.

Adam Kowalewski
Marta Two aspects. It just so occurred to me that I was also abroad for a few years, because I lived in Norway. I worked there as a psychologist and actually. This Purrando around Christmas. So what keeps us here? Christmas and the vibe that people in foreign countries are after all. They probably come back for the dumplings, they probably come back for the scions, they probably come back for the poppy seed cake, but nevertheless that Christmas atmosphere here is a very, very important factor. And like you said, I'd probably like to try it once, maybe twice. But when I think about Christmas whatever it may be, how much tension around the table, well, gee, Christmas in Poland to an important holiday.

Adam Kowalewski
Something is something, this shepherdess.

Adam Kowalewski
As you were talking about dinner starting at twenty-two, it came to mind. And at our house, after the shepherdess' service, there was a matinee, which means we came with.

Adam Kowalewski
Church to eat something, anyone else there?

Adam Kowalewski
Gentlemen, possibly like some kind of alcohol. Sometimes it dragged on, that the festivities already started after the shepherdess. But these are the kinds of things that actually work in our country, and somewhere this mentality of Poles, the desire to return to Poland. This is interesting. In general, if you are in a foreign country. My first year maybe not, but the second, third year this longing.

Monika Rachtan
But have you ever spent Christmas abroad, or has it always been back to Poland?

Adam Kowalewski
We also had and spent time there. And it was interesting, because these mechanisms in my observation of people who are abroad, then suddenly, like let's say around the family table, there's a lot of tension, because we meet, some things come to the surface, these questions about children or other uncomfortable topics. Whereas there, because you don't have access to your family, it turns out that often the people you're with, your workmates, your friends, someone who helped you, who you helped abroad. Suddenly you form this kind of family, a bit by choice, a surrogate family. Yes, and it was interesting, because in Norway I had such an opportunity that I met only wonderful Poles who helped me. We gave a lot, but we got so much support at the beginning, because it was a difficult period, and suddenly we meet at this, let's call it, festive, family table. I know that I have a bond with these people that came out of this difficult foreign situation, but it was very interesting, because it was a sincere relationship.

Adam Kowalewski
There was no one there to come and attach themselves to something and somehow make an additional comment about how you look.

Kasia Bosacka
In that respect, it was a cooler Christmas.

Adam Kowalewski
Because everyone was having a hard time, somehow it was a bit more difficult. You know, it was away from the family, then all of a sudden we'd get together and want to give each other the usual.

Monika Rachtan
A meeting, right?

Adam Kowalewski
And heat. Not one. The other one wasn't, there weren't so many conventions, so many of these tensions. And yet here it turned out that there was a lot more of that, you know, that relationship and support that was forming because of the situation.

Monika Rachtan
Your family from Poland reacted to the fact that you stayed in this Norway for Christmas. They resented you not coming back.

Adam Kowalewski
You know what, as a young person on the rise, if it was often economic decisions, it wasn't that we didn't want to. We just, you know, had the situation, we calculated how much it was going to cost. On top of that, there's gifts, there's a lot of things that come with the holidays. And you have to go for three days. It turns out that you know it just wasn't possible so rationally. There is a section of Poles who will do it anyway, come to Poland and take a loan, still rent a car that is top class, to come for Christmas. And so as a pledge.

Adam Kowalewski
Sia, and bet, you can't.

Adam Kowalewski
It's different, it's a different mechanism that works for these people abroad. Whereas we took a common-sense approach, they understood it, but again it was more from this issue of being in the truth, having an honest conversation, that it's not my opinion, it's just a matter of simply assessing the situation in such a realistic way.

Marta Podleśna
In the context of what you said, this is also very interesting. I just called two people yesterday, Christopher, who has lived in Spain for 20 years, and my friend Martina, who has lived in Peru for 20 years. They both said that they missed Christmas very much, but they also mentioned that they had a family who took them in, and it was very clear to them after all those years that that was the most important thing. Not that they made some dish similar or identical to the one in Poland, but that they assimilated somewhere on the spot. And even already.

Adam Kowalewski
About a Polish family, that some Polish family.

Marta Podleśna
No, no, not necessarily, no. Or a local family. It was also this conversation yesterday that contributed to Christopher making a phone call to this Spanish family. He says You know what? Thanks to you, I just felt like a Spaniard, so I was welcomed, because also the perspective of this Polish community leaving is that they come back, if they can for the first years, and then they assimilate somewhere and into this local culture, so they kind of adapt to the way the holidays are spent in the country. So it's implementation, or somewhere in there. Being welcomed into some kind of family is very important.

Kasia Bosacka
And that is what you were saying, Adam, that there were not these conflicts at the table. Let us also remember one important conflict that has divided us Poles for many years. Namely, political conversations also start at the table. Oh yes, and this is where things can indeed sometimes go very wrong in these conversations. And the fact that you are in a foreign country allows you to put things into perspective, to be less emotional. And the other thing you said about the hit, which is another one.

Adam Kowalewski
Another dose.

Kasia Bosacka
Cheesecake. So I was fond of seeing such a meme. He goes around the holidays and will continue to go around. Vegetable salad dose reminiscent hahahahahahaha.

Adam Kowalewski
Oh yes! Great!

Marta Podleśna
Speaking of vegetable salad, I've just recently seen a roll like this or mum? I don't know what it was. A guy eats a salad and a woman attacks him. That's only from tomorrow.

Marta Podleśna
Must put away and in a while such. Then I'll be eating a sour three days later for work.

Adam Kowalewski
So it is like this.

Marta Podleśna
The quintessential example of just how on this Christmas Eve you can't have cake, you can't try salad, because everything is for tomorrow.

Adam Kowalewski
I just have a question. Did you have a situation where if someone ate it, it couldn't be moved, but someone ate it because they already had a craving? My grandmother used to do that, she would lift these beautiful arrangements, she would even them out.

Adam Kowalewski
With mayonnaise, it will even things out a bit and it was unmoved again hahaha. But that's me.

Marta Podleśna
Always the outgoing one. When I drop in.

Adam Kowalewski
It is quietly.

Marta Podleśna
I take a bite and then.

Adam Kowalewski
It compensates with cheesecake. Worse is with.

Marta Podleśna
I do my best for everyone.

Adam Kowalewski
With the knowledge that.

Kasia Bosacka
My cousin, for example, used to carry cheesecake in the car because he said they would eat it, so he would lock his share in the car for me to eat.

Monika Rachtan
Adam, and tell me, have you ever rented all those gingersnaps like this before? Borscht is. The kind of thought that Kasia was talking about, that we've done something wrong, comes up in some people's minds. Do you have patients coming to you who, before Christmas, are already very much reliving the fact that they're going to eat out this Christmas? That, for example, they've had a New Year's resolution all year, they've lost 15 kilos, they've managed to regain their health, because they were suffering from obesity. Their blood pressure got regulated, their cholesterol went down. That's how much everyone worked for it. That year on Christmas Eve they said you have a problem, you need to lose weight. And now they're coming to this Christmas Eve. Is there going to be that cheesecake? It's going to be the plate setting. There's a rigour in their mind that's been there all year, and suddenly they're in this very difficult situation. Because the family, the emotions, but also the desire to eat it. The shrinks, I've been denying myself all year. They come.

Adam Kowalewski
There are some people who have a big problem with this. And now there are two issues. One issue is that if I am very restrictive, I have managed to achieve something. It's such a mechanism that if I break even for two days, it's like I've lost everything and have to start again. It's totally wrong, but actually sometimes it's like that with some resolutions that I keep, keep, keep. For 30 days I was supposed to hold for two months, one day I broke myself. All for nothing. That is, people break these processes and have a very big feeling. That kind of remorse is not right, it's not the best. I think it's kind of a matter of decision-making in this situation, because if I make a decision that for 2 days I have a window, it's such a fashionable eating window now, then I have.

Kasia Bosacka
Groundhog Day.

Adam Kowalewski
Exactly.

Adam Kowalewski
Here was a window. In this case, we are opening it to a door, not a window. So this is a food door, yes? And then it's much easier to accommodate. That is one aspect. But the other aspect. I think it's a very interesting strategy to look a little bit higher at the situation. A little bit from the perspective that, see, if my mother, my grandmother, my family prepares food out of care, out of tradition, out of love, out of wanting to take care, well I come and I won't eat anything. I'm so very rigid, restrictive. It's again a matter of communication and looking at the whole situation. A very cool way is to look at that appreciation with a thank you. Maybe at the table it can't always be done, Maybe in the kitchen to approach, to whisper in the ear that I appreciate, that I know she's trying, that I know it cost a lot of work, but that I'm a little bit less, then again it's a matter of appreciation and flowing that information. Because if I'm sitting stiffly and I don't want to be attacked and now not put anything in for me, that creates tension for me and for the other party.

Adam Kowalewski
Also appreciation. There's also this very cool way to deal with it. That is, when you appreciate already how he says it was important. And on the other hand at the table you will put a little bit on your plate it will spread out. Focus too, but you don't eat it all, It's not standing on an empty plate, then you're not so very anti and closed. And it turns out to be much more acceptable.

Kasia Bosacka
You can also take away.

Adam Kowalewski
A very cool option. I have already eaten. Thank you. Can I get one? Because it's probably great to go home and then decide. But it's really a lot of people have a problem with it. How do you deal with it? You can use any of these strategies, Only I think it's appreciation and communication again that will be key. That is, the question of whether I can be admittedly with the other person, but you know, that's kind of my approach, because I work with it every day. It's not always obvious or simple or easy. And these holidays I often think are the other way around, because they can be revolutionary through these tensions, because sometimes that tension of not eating, that tension of some kind of holding on to yourself. It turns out that it shows a lot more mechanisms in the family, a lot more problems can come out precisely because this tension is held for a while. Suddenly, as they say, the milk has been spilt. Also the holidays can be.heartbreaking

Kasia Bosacka
Christmas is all about tension. Well, because there is this atmosphere of such a rush, that this still has to be done and that still has to be done. And I think this pre-Christmas tension is illustrated by the classic joke when a son comes to his dad and says Dad, Dad, the tree is on fire, the child is not on fire, it's lit, Dad, Dad, the curtains are lit too.

Marta Podleśna
And just by the way, what you were saying about this communication, because it is so important, I think, because even if you don't go at that Christmas table and you thank someone for preparing the food, that's probably it, because I think it's ours. That's how I think our grandmothers and mothers feed, that this food is just giving love and that's the essence, that's it. So if they're happy when they see that we're just all smiling, that's how we put on the extras, or there still asking for more. So it's so personal for them, somewhere it's such a sting that someone hasn't eaten or refuses to eat that food. It's that they don't want to be fed that love, yes. So that's where even the tricks come from, the kind of tricks that you've given or the thanks. Just like that, I think that's the essence, the essence of it.

Adam Kowalewski
I am reminded of a situation when I was doing a health-promoting hunger strike, a cleansing kind of hunger strike, and I happened to be home alone at the time, but I was living in such my family home. My grandmother was there, my grandmother every day three times a day. And am I hungry and will I eat something? And I had this brief moment that after all I said yesterday, the day before yesterday, what doesn't she understand? And then, like I said Grandma, everything is fine. I just do it for my health. Thank you. And every time I would say No, thank you, do yourself, I'm happy to sit with you. It's completely changed the dynamic, but it's the issue of saying thank you. Because for them, it's a no-brainer. There used to be no food, there was war and getting, eating, feeding was. You know, yes, crucial, important. Just taking care of the family and showing love. Also that can be very interesting. And again, if you do that, it can be a landmark Christmas.

Monika Rachtan
I so listen to what you are saying about love, about this very pushing and I wonder what our society is like. And the truth is that 30% of our society is obese, 30% is overweight, and only 30 is normal weight. And I wonder how to reconcile all this, because it's terribly difficult. On the one hand, the message from our programme every few episodes is to eat rationally, Dash diet, to think about this health, to just take care of this healthy food and you say Christmas Eve is once a year. You said earlier that on Christmas Eve we have the healthiest dinner and the healthiest dinner we eat all year round. And on the other hand, we talk about such extreme overeating. And now let's think about the fact that there are more occasions like this. Well, because there's Christmas. It's one, it's New Year's Eve right away, sometimes there are two Christmas Eves, then it's Epiphany, again we get together with friends, family, then there are name days, birthdays and all the time we have to show that love. And what do we end up eating healthily or not eating?

Monika Rachtan
How to look at it? How to deal with all this?

Kasia Bosacka
Listen, I have a friend who is of the Eastern faith, while her husband is Catholic. They live in Bialystok, so they actually have two Christmas Eve celebrations a week apart. She says that when they start celebrating, well they just eat all the time for a fortnight, so some people have it worse.

Adam Kowalewski
Then maybe at least a little more. This is nice.

Kasia Bosacka
I don't think I agree a bit with these New Year's resolutions, because what we do is we have Christmas now, we're going to eat until New Year's Eve. Well, still on New Year's Eve, you know, we drink alcohol most of the time We go to bed late, we get up in the morning, it's already the first of January and what happens? From a health point of view, we are so cramped and tired, and monstrously hungry. And that first day is the worst day you can choose to go on a diet. I would, however, wait a bit and I think the seventh one is quite good. As one politician said after Six Kings the seventh.

Kasia Bosacka
Day diet So seriously start, because first of January absolutely not. After this fatigue, the body will demand calories on its own.

Monika Rachtan
And you make your New Year's resolutions.

Marta Podleśna
I don't make New Year's resolutions, I make myself. It's some kind of validation. But no, no, it's not strictly the first of January. It's just not the kind of date for me that has to be, that from the new year onwards, something there. So sort of. Obviously, I keep a lot of different notebooks, diaries, it goes by all sorts of things, I resolve, I plan or I send out an intention whatever you call it. Anyway, I work with all that, but absolutely not that. No, I'm not planning it for 1 January. I also think it's a little bit overrated these resolutions related to the first of January, that oh that's just by the way gyms, fitness centres, different clubs and so on. They just have great, great increases just in January because that's what everyone resolves and then in February they finish. So in my opinion these are such burned out resolutions very often. I believe in the power of habits simply. Yeah.

Kasia Bosacka
I have the first of January, as every year I always have the same resolution, namely to be a good person.

Monika Rachtan
This is a very good resolution from Adam. How about you?

Adam Kowalewski
January is a time of reflection for me, whereas it's never the case that it has to be the first or second January. I take the same approach as you Marta that it's good to reflect and build habits well. That's why, as we're talking about Christmas, one thing that came to mind was that actually one or two days won't change anything in the perspective of a year. Whereas if, as you said, Christmas Eve is only once a year, every day is only once a year and we can have just that. I laugh that it's an asshole because people use it that way. Well yes, but birthdays are once a year, communion is once a year, once in a lifetime in general and so on and so forth. Whereas if I two days. I can have that backlash. There's even one of the very cool diets that you strictly stick to for six days. But the seventh day is a day in inverted commas of debauchery, but also to mobilise the metabolism. And then I. I, for example, really like the intermittent thing, also in terms of habits, that 6 days I'm able to stick to, but on the 7th day I also feed the inner child, because yes, Because if I'm so strict to myself for a whole year, it's also so quite difficult and somewhere after that maybe a year I can hold out, maybe even two, but then it's a rebound somewhere.

Adam Kowalewski
Also, I take such a very common sense approach to it, and habits actually when something is close to my heart, I put it into a very small habit. A very cool thing. I don't know if you've heard of this, but how to learn to drink water, because a lot of people don't drink enough water. There's one rule of thumb that says when you stand you want it.

Adam Kowalewski
Aha.

Adam Kowalewski
So if I put up a glass and fill it with water and it's in plain sight, I actually drink one more glass of water. And that's a good place to start to change such serious habits. Because if someone says start drinking 3 litres of water a day because it's healthy hahahaha.

Marta Podleśna
That's the power of habits And also listen to how on 1 January we suddenly open up some diary and write to ourselves I'm going to be this, I'm going to be that. If we start 10 new things with that day on the 1st of January then it's just going to burn itself out, because nobody can just start changing everything in one month. That's why I'm this advocate of the small steps method and positive habits throughout the year. And that reflection just around the change of the year, yes.

Monika Rachtan
I've had this way for a few years now too. What you said about, giving myself rewards. I kind of take stock of that previous year in January and write down what I did right, because I think the things that we do that we don't agree with, that don't work out, we have on a daily basis. That's how we feel about them, we feel like something needs to change and it's probably a little bit not worth it. Then at the start of a new year knock ourselves out again. Last year you didn't lose the 5 kilos you wanted to lose, or again you didn't start going to the pool twice a week, you only went once.

Kasia Bosacka
And it would be much longer. And just like that.

Monika Rachtan
Writing to yourself Hey, see, you didn't go to the pool at all, didn't move at all, and you started going once a week, You were planning two. But cool, you managed once a week. That's already a very big step. Nothing versus something. So just giving myself such positive incentives helps me a lot, because then I'm mobilised. I've already done so much this year, so next year maybe I'll be able to do something nice too, but without so much as imposing some kind of framework on myself that it has to be exactly that and completed. But Adam, I still wanted to ask you about these New Year's resolutions. Do your patients come to you and say Mr Adam, I have this list here. I came up with this, this, this, this and this. Please tell me, as a psychologist, how do I make it happen?

Adam Kowalewski
Because I have no idea.

Adam Kowalewski
Much more of this happens in mentoring than in clinical patients. On the other hand, I come from one premise and that is my strategy for working with people. If I choose one thing, even in the classes that I teach, whether they are breathing or meditation or developmental or training or mentoring, I start with one thing. With one thing that I am able to master. And on that I build a sense of confidence in myself, a sense of effectiveness, a sense of competence. And I build these bricks on a very small, even reduced goal. Why? Because we as Poles are probably the best and outstanding at criticising ourselves and criticising others. And now see if I have a resolution that says I want to walk 5 times a week for 30 minutes each, because that's where I'll start, I don't want to run yet, I'll do 4 days a week. It's been a week, I haven't done 5. And these people can criticise themselves for not doing, not meeting the goal and can really spiral into negative thoughts. The inner critic can be so active that they totally ruin the fun, the fun, the habit building.

Adam Kowalewski
And in fact they did, if they didn't walk 400% more today. And the feeling that is left on the basis that I haven't met the target and what is wrong with me? I'm out of order. That's why I do more often than not, I do a reduction of those goals, I do the minimal things with a sense of hunger for more. I remember learning this from a personal trainer once, because it was the gym. It was just in June that I wanted to start somehow. Gym, come on, we do etc. Three times a week is how many you need. And he told me you don't do twice a week and you are banned from doing any other physical activity. So that means no extra cycling, no running, no doing anything. You're only supposed to be at these two workouts, which are 45 minutes long. You know, that's how proud I was, he says. I don't do anything else because the coach didn't tell me to. But you know what turned out? Actually, after a month of hunger.

Adam Kowalewski
It appeared.

Adam Kowalewski
And that feeling. Everything I had planned, I implemented and it was beautiful. So beautiful, because see the four walks and the feeling that there is and that there is something wrong with it. It's a really unfavourable pattern that's emerging.

Marta Podleśna
I thought. It's in the context of Christmas Eve that I can do more?

Adam Kowalewski
Hahahahahahaha. Listen, I'll come back to this Christmas again.

Monika Rachtan
And until Christmas Eve. What's the most spectacular way to spend Christmas you've heard of? Do you have any friends who do something really crazy like this for Christmas?

Marta Podleśna
I can tell you about the context of an interesting country in Asia. In general, Asia is mainly Catholic, so Christmas is not really celebrated there in such a spiritual context. Whereas, of course, commercial Christmas everywhere is this Christmas in the form of buying Christmas trees or presents. But Japan, for example, is a very interesting example of a country that doesn't celebrate Christmas at all. And this gap I think was noticed in the 1970s or 1980s, noticed by the WSI countries. Listen, and they came up with this loophole in general, they don't celebrate Christmas, so we'll come up with something and they came up with Listen Christmas chicken from KFC, Christmas listen, that kind of sets, yeah. And it's so far everyone can, not everyone, but most Japanese. Listen traditionally orders buckets for Christmas.

Adam Kowalewski
From Asian countries.

Marta Podleśna
What's more, listen at the moment it's about 20, 30%, 20, 30% of KFC's annual revenue coming from these Christmas cups. So that's. You can? You can. That's that example. This example of commercialism entering just when local, yes into a country where just these festivities are not practised at all. So this is, in my opinion, quite a big phenomenon and an interesting example, yes?

Monika Rachtan
Well, yes, I think in Poland we would absolutely refuse to accept. And let's go back to this food in Poland and how much of it is on the table. Does it happen to you that after Christmas? Kasia Tobie no, because.

Adam Kowalewski
In you go.

Monika Rachtan
Everything just gets eaten up. But do you use places like community fridges, for example, that pack up what you have left and carry it over there for someone who couldn't afford a lavish Christmas?

Adam Kowalewski
I do not use it.

Kasia Bosacka
He agrees, everything Hahahahahahaha.

Marta Podleśna
With us, the rule is I can do anything hehe. And we kind of do our own thing here. There's a big family too, so we have someone to share with, so to speak. Whereas, yes, I don't use community fridges, but if we have someone in our community who we know is a person in need, we just do it directly that way.

Kasia Bosacka
We had such a situation last year that there were several vegetable salads on the table, well, you couldn't eat it. But you can make a cream soup out of a rinsed vegetable salad, just season it and.

Monika Rachtan
Always.

Adam Kowalewski
Pita.

Kasia Bosacka
Rinse with mayonnaise. And the other thing you can do is you can make a tart, put the salad on top and bake it with a bit of yellow cheese.

Monika Rachtan
Thank you very much, because it.

Adam Kowalewski
Thanks to you, several salads have been saved.

Kasia Bosacka
We can freeze because there is mayonnaise and wherever there is, wherever there is mayonnaise, wherever there is whipped cream, wherever there are fresh eggs, we cannot freeze tiramisu, for example, that is not suitable for freezing, creme cake too.

Monika Rachtan
I'm going to come back to these fridges and appeal to our viewers that if you have some food left over after Christmas and you absolutely do not want to look at it any more, it is in these community fridges that you can leave this food. Of course, we leave food that is fresh, that is fit to eat and just to share with someone who didn't have a hearty Christmas, who couldn't afford to leave that table. It's a very beautiful idea. We are also very keen to share various things before Christmas, as there are many beautiful campaigns that have been adopted in Poland. Also after Christmas, the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity. I can already tell you that Jurek Owsiak will soon be my guest on the Patient programme. So I would like to invite our viewers to such a conversation today. Listen, our conversation is coming to an end. I'm a little sad because we could still sit here for a while, but it's probably time for Christmas wishes. What would you like to wish the Poles? Kasia, why don't we start with you?

Kasia Bosacka
I would actually like to tell you a little perversely what I do not wish for the Poles. I once remember coming to my friends' house. They had just moved house and there was only one Christmas tree standing among various parcels, a live, beautiful tree. And on this Christmas tree there was one single bauble and nothing else. And on that bauble was written Merry Christmas. Minister of Finance. I would like to wish, first of all, prosperity, but also that they take care of their health, because it's really worth it, it's worth leaning into and it's worth spending any money. If we do not have access to the NFZ. If the queue is very long, get yourself examined, so that, for example, this New Year's resolution is to get yourself examined, to check the various things that we need to do at a given age. And I think that's very important and the most important thing, because if we have health, we'll have strength, we'll have prosperity, and above all, I don't think so either. But I also wish myself love, because that's the most important thing in life.

Adam Kowalewski
Adam it is I who wish peace, but such deep peace and what you said love. This peace for me often comes from breathing. I teach a lot of people to breathe and I see that if we are really calm, then maybe we can stress a little less before Christmas that we are calm. Then maybe we can find that moment to look mummy grandma in the eye and say thank you. If there is that calm, then perhaps we will eat one less piece of cheesecake and not compulsively. We will also take that deep inner peace. That's what I would like to wish for, and the rest will fall into place.

Kasia Bosacka
I think holy peace

Marta Podleśna
I wish.that in families, people simply notice each other. I would also like to draw attention to the youngest members of the family, who often say during the festive season that they are presented like furniture and do not see that in the midst of all the preparations, where they are simply not noticed, maybe they should cook a little less, maybe clean the windows a little less, and simply find time to spend together, to talk, to listen to each other, to notice each other. And also such a context from other cultures taken from, whether from the continent of Africa, so that these holidays are so family-oriented, but also in a social context, so that we see each other in. As a community of well-wishers.

Kasia Bosacka
These are very important wishes, because after all, we are leaving this plate for a stray wanderer, right? Will that plate go to an eatery? Will it go to our elderly neighbour? It doesn't matter, this sharing of what is on the Christmas Eve table is also very important in our tradition.

Monika Rachtan
Thank you so much for your beautiful wishes. They are very touching. I think I would like to wish our viewers to also find a moment for themselves in all this rush. Of course loved ones are very important, but it's also important that we feel good about ourselves at this Christmas table. So let's think about what one thing we can let go of, and what one thing we can do for ourselves, so that this inner child of ours is fed not only with cheesecake, but also with these cool emotions. Dear friends, I was very pleased to host you here today. It was a great pleasure to welcome you in front of our screens. Once again, I think it is traditional for me to wish you a Merry Christmas. It may mean something different to everyone, but the most important thing is that you feel happy this Christmas.