I failed Garlic 101 twice this year. First, I ran myself silly in June trying to find garlic to plant in my garden. It turns out garlic is planted in the autumn. Fancy that! Strike One.

So filled with good intentions, I sought out websites where local (North Carolinian) heritage garlic sets were obtainable. Nearly 80% of our garlic in stores today comes now from China and much has been lost in quality, starting with flavor! I discovered a wide array of varieties with names colorful enough to fill a 24-count box of crayons. But guess what? If you wait until September to order, these wonderful garlic set will have been sold. Planted likely, too. Strike Two.

Today’s Advent post is an effort to redeem myself by making garlic the titular topic. Lest you think I have gone off the rails, centuries of Christian tradition stand by my side.

While use of garlic stretches back to Egyptian times, we have only a lone mention of it in the Old Testament, where it appears as one of the foods the wandering Hebrews, with their misguided nostalgia for life back in Egypt, yearned to have:

We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic. — Numbers 11:5

We will not find specific descriptions and guidelines for garlic in the Scriptures. What we do find, though, is garlic as the hero within the Christmas-Eve supper that has developed over centuries in Christian practice.

Because I spent most of my adult life as a church organist, playing a glorious marathon of services after which the best one can hope is to find an open IHOP, my idea of Christmas-Eve supper was romanticized. I longed for a leisurely Christmas-Eve supper that would fit the pages of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Oh, for a table overflowing with fowl and venison, pots of steaming vegetables and roasted potatoes, cakes galore, and . . . oh wait! That describes a Christmas Day feast—the meal on December 25th. That is when the fatted bird was sent to Bob Cratchit’s house and Scrooge finally visited his nephew.

So let’s back up to a far different understanding of Christmas-Eve supper within the liturgical traditions of Christianity. When possible, it is served when the first star appears, reminding us of the Star of Bethlehem. The table is strewn with straw or other natural materials to represent the manager. If possible, linen table clothes will be used, symbolizing the linen in which Baby Jesus was wrapped. Traditions can vary, of course, but generally a single candle is lit to represent the Light of Christ (a clear parallel with the white candle placed in the middle of the Western Advent wreath). The menu for this feast resembles nothing described in Dickens other than having multiple courses.

Twelve, as a matter of fact. Why twelve? To commemorate the twelve apostles who partook with Jesus in the Last Supper. And within those twelve courses, garlic plays a starring role. Let’s look at the First Course:

Raw Cloves of Garlic dipped in Honey. Or another bitter food, like onions. But garlic is preferred.

Not many of us start a feast with a course of garlic! But what food better could better symbolize the dichotomy of Christ’s life on Earth?

Yes, Christ’s birth had its tender moments (honey), but was fraught with difficulties (no room at the inn, flight into Egypt). The bitter path awaiting Jesus from Palm Sunday through the Passion unto the Crucifixion was set, too, in that manger. So garlic gives us a concrete way to frame, symbolize, and experience these events.

After the garlic course (or onion if garlic is out of the question for you), options abound, most dictated by the ethnicity of those having the supper. Some traditions will prepare several courses of garlic or sour and pickled foods, or possibly a beverage made of sour berries. Then expect variations on beets (Slavic tradition) or other root vegetables, soups like cabbage soup or borscht, potatoes with onions and garlic, cereals cooked with poppy seeds, various dumplings and puff pastries filled with mushroom, onion, and garlic stuffing, and even stewed dried fruits, already bringing touches of the sweetness soon to come.

No matter what tradition you research, you will notice the menu is meatless. Some families do include fish during the fasting season of Advent or add it just for the occasion of Christmas Eve. In that case, it will be specific kinds of fish like carp, herring, or pike playing the starring roles.

Ancient blessings as well as songs, proverbs, and prayers are associated with the twelve courses. After the meal, the dishes, by tradition, are left unwashed (I like that part . . . I think). The family may open a few gifts. But then the big event on the schedule is the trek to late-night services.

If you experience a Christmas-Eve service with a complete, ancient liturgy, it is possible you will be arriving home around 2 or 3 in the morning. Why? Because after the service, a second feast is given (usually at the church), one that breaks the Advent fast and therefore abounds in dairy, meat, but most especially sweets.

My first experience seeing this kind of feast goes way back. Still, I vividly recall my astonishment walking into a parish hall close to 1 a.m., after singing a long service, and being blinded by tables ablaze with candles and toppling over with cookies, cakes, candies, warm punch, and far more. Nothing could have been more different than the way I grew up where kids were fed simply, early on Christmas Eve, and rushed off to bed.

Perhaps your upbringing was like mine. Or perhaps you were raised in, or have ventured into, a more traditional observance of Advent and Christmas Eve. Either way, it’s intriguing and rewarding to delve into these traditions. It’s particularly fun to research the various recipes if you enjoy cooking. Recipes for Greek, Polish, Lithuanian, Russian, Slovenian, Hungarian, and other dishes for Christmas-Eve supper are easy to find on the Internet. You also will find marvelous recipes for Christmas-Eve dishes from the Italian, French, German, Dutch, and other European traditions.

Or, you may want to create a completely new version of these traditions according to dishes your family already knows and likes, using courses based in grains, pickles, soup, mushrooms, root vegetables, dried fruits, and of course garlic! Maybe some of the ancient ideas for setting and decorating the table can be adapted. And if you do attend a highly liturgical Christmas-Eve service, and indulge in sweets in the wee hours, rest assured that the kids will fall asleep. Fatigue eventually counters sugar at some point. And one thing for certain: no one will ever forget this kind of a Christmas Eve!