Both my parents immigrated to the states from Poland. With them they brought all their polish heritage and recipes. When my grandma comes to stay with us, which is usually every summer, she is always in the kitchen cooking something. Whether it’s soup, sausage, potato pancakes, pierogi, golabki, etc. there is always some kind of home cooked meal. My parents come from southern poland by Krakow and in the mountain range. My dad lived in Oswiecim (Auschwitz). He doesn’t have as big of a family as my mom has. On my dad's side of my family they have one distinct tradition, and unfortunately it isn’t the most exciting thing, or at least I thought it wasn’t. Every year we have christmas at my house. We have a huge party with all our family members. On the table we have the same things everytime. Delicious hickory smoked ham, cranberry sauce, kluski, kasza (which I despise) , and of course cloves of garlic with a tiny bowl of salt. The cloves of garlic is the distasteful tradition and only tradition his family has. No one knows why or where it came from, but they do it anyway. I hated it as a kid. The garlic left such an unpleasant aftertaste. The salt was suppose to help but all it did was burn my throat. I never wanted to try it, and my dad didn’t really push me to do it. A few year ago, I started to do it with my family. My dad said it’s suppose to promote good health and good luck for the new year. It still tasted disgusting, but it’s a tradition that my dad has. From then on, I loved to participate. It brings a nice tradition into christmas and it brings a part of my dad's childhood to me. Most of his family still lives in Poland, it's only him, his uncle and his brother that came to the states. While the whole side of my mom's family is in the states. I do believe that the garlic tradition has brought my dad and I close together, I already was a daddy's girl. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.