Easter is one of the most important holidays in Poland. Easter celebrations take place for
more than a week in Poland and start with Palm Sunday.
One of my favorite days is Easter Saturday. On this special day, Poles decorate baskets with lace napkins, boxwood (the typical Polish Easter evergreen) or catkin, put Easter food inside and take everything to churches where food is blessed. The tricky part is that nobody can eat the basket goodies until Easter breakfast. It is on Sunday, right after the morning mass, when Polish families gather for breakfast and share each piece of blessed food among all their members.
Are you curious what people in Poland usually put into the Easter baskets?
Especially for you, I asked my friends to take pictures of their baskets.
 |
| Koszyczek wielkanocny Katarzyny. / Katarzyna's Easter basket. |
 |
| Koszyczek wielkanocny Natalii. / Natalia's Easter basket. |
Can you find:
- bread (chleb)?
- Easter eggs (pisanki)?
- a sausage (kiełbasa)?
- a butter lamb (baranek z masła)?
- salt (sól)?
- an Easter cake (babka)?
- an orange (pomarańcza)?
- chocolate eggs (jajka z czekolady)?
- an Easter bunny (zajączek z czekolady)?
- a lace napkin (serwetka)?
- boxwood (bukszpan)?
Do you have similar customs?
What would you put into your basket?
Tak piękny! We, too, have a blessing of food on Saturday at our Catholic (Roman) Church on Saturday, but the food is not always organized in baskets. In the South (where I live), Catholicism is in a minority. Baptist and Church of Christ are the primary religions here (there are many, many others too) -- I don't know what their tradition is. I love the Polish tradition at Easter along with the blessing of the wafers at Christmas -- in America, we don't have the tradition of the opłatek outside of the Polish communities! -Kris Junik
ReplyDelete