It’s Christmas Eve and that means…perogies.

Well, yes, I know that’s not all it means. But in my family, it’s certainly one of the “non-negotiables” of Christmas Eve. Rick and the kids and I have our traditions that we dip in and out of depending on the year: a candlelight Christmas Eve service at church, driving around town looking for Santa, Tim-Tams and hot chocolate or playing Gift Trap – one of those strange games no one else has ever heard of that we don’t even remember where it came from. But, perogies – as Severus Snape would say – Always.

Or pyrohy, as my Ukrainian side would assert. Being both Ukrainian and Polish, I can claim ownership of either way to name the potato-and-cheese-filled dumplings that we make and eat every Christmas Eve. There are other variations, of course, filled with sauerkraut, or even blueberries, as my niece is making this year, trying for a more vegan – and sweeter than sauerkraut – version. But potato-and-cheese is my favorite so in my house, since I make ’em, I get to decide what kind we have.

Perogies are part of our pared-down version of the twelve dishes of Christmas Eve that Ukrainians would traditionally eat. My mom had already moved past the original idea of the meal being traditionally dairy-free – hence, the cheese in the perogies – but her Christmas Eve table was filled with many of the usual Ukrainian suspects: kutia – or wheat pudding to start the meal – then fried fish, mashed beans with garlic and pickled herring, to name a few. But there were the not-so-traditional dishes, like steamed broccoli with lemon – a family favorite – and Jell-O for dessert. But always – always – perogies.

Maybe the reason the perogies figure so largely in my Christmas Eve psyche is because when I was growing up, making them was a big part of Christmas Eve. It was sort of a holy endeavor, all of “the girls” preparing and consecrating this bread-like thing for the meal we were going to share together. Making it all the more mouth-watering as we rolled and stuffed and pinched was our family’s observance of Christmas Eve as a fasting day (well, at least we ate a lot less than usual) in anticipation of that evening meal.

When I no longer spent Christmas Eve with my mom, I would make a date with her sometime before Christmas to have a perogy-making day. I would go to her house and she would have the filling and possibly the dough already made – she was terrible at procrastination – and we would spend the subsequent hours visiting and, factory-like, cranking out hundreds of perogies for her freezer and mine.

It’s been five years this Christmas that Mom has been gone. She passed away on December 15, 2014. Most of us had squirreled away some of Mom’s perogies that we had made with her at some other time during the year prior to her getting too sick to make them anymore. It was a bittersweet communion on Christmas Eve, eating some of the last of her perogies that year.

And so, it surprised me the next year when Christmas Eve was almost upon me and…I had no perogies in the freezer. Luckily, I had taken good enough notes and had badgered Mom for specific amounts for her dough recipe and her fillings – because she didn’t have it written down. It always just came out of her head and her heart and her hands. Which was probably why her food tasted so good.

But it’s really not about the food. Yes, the idea of Christmas evokes visions of “sugar-plums” – turkey and trimmings, shortbread, gingerbread, eggnog, even Christmas oranges – things that we may not only have once a year anymore, but at least have a strong association with Christmas and, I hope, with happy memories. Like in Dr. Seuss story of the Grinch, Christmas would still come, and has come, without perogies or turkey or Tim-Tams.

Perogies taste good. But the things I savor even more are in the making – of the perogies with mom, of the memories of Christmas Eves past and of the meal I will share with my husband and kids tonight. In the making of something concrete, we can create something ethereal and even – dare I say? – heavenly. That is what Christmas Eve is all about (Charlie Brown). Not to say that the baby Jesus is like a perogy, but a flimsy analogy can be made of the reverse process: Christmas is when the heavenly was made concrete.

And maybe, just maybe, the humble perogy can help us remember that.