Interestingly, there is an entry for Wigilia on Wikipedia.org.

Traditions, customs and descriptions of the food can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigilia.

Every family has their own version of the traditions.

As we used to do back at our parents house, we started with (oplatek) Christmas wafer, followed by the beetroot soup with (uszka) little ears.

There was deep-fried fresh snapper with tartar sauce spiced up with jalapeño peppers. Home made, fresh sauce can not be compared with the store bout one. The snapper tasted so good. The beetroot soup, my mother’s favorite, was great too.

Hungarian and French red wines were served accompanied by Christmas music in the background. Our mother used to watch the Midnight Mass from Rome.

Edited – Initially I posted an incorrect price.

It is the third Thursday in November – time for wine.

Not just any wine, it has to be Beaujolais Nouveau. You are not allowed, and it is illegal, to drink it before today. The wine is young, just 16 weeks ago it was grapes. I have been following this ritual for years. Today at Costco I went to the wine section. There was a table setup with some South American wine attended by two people. The guy who was signing the bottles happened to be the winery owner. The woman at the table started to tell me about their wine. I just spotted the vibrant label of Beaujolais Nouveau behind her and reached for it telling her that she were selling the wrong kind of wine. My wine was $9.99, which is probably cheaper than in local Publix.

For the occasion I got fresh mozzarella, Comte and could not pass by prosciutto by Citterio. Prosciutto is expensive, but unique and quality counts the most. While on vacation in Italy last year we ate it quiet often. Here is my version, prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, tomatoes with EVOO, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper.

There was French Comte, avocado with soy sauce and pickled papaya with hot red peppers for the side dish.

Wine was excellent, fresh and surprisingly delicate for the young wine. I still have half of the bottle for tomorrow (vacuum protected and not in the refrigerator). Incidentally, the wine cork is made of plastic. Many French wines use this type of cork material lately. The wine experts say it is better because the new material does not absorb or react with wine preserving its original taste.

Edited.
I had to edit this post because I made two spelling errors using the tiny iPhone keyboard. My fingers are too big for it. One of the my suggestions for Apple is to make the iPhone keyboard work in horizontal (wider) mode.