2020 Polish Easter Traditions

POLISH EASTER EGGS

It’s a very different Easter this year with the “Safer at Home” order keeping everybody at home in our state. Still, many Polish American families will follow Polish Easter traditions of which Easter egg decorating is perhaps the best known.

Traditionally, Polish Easter eggs come in three main varieties.Kraszanki are single-colored eggs made by boiling them in water with various natural ingredients (e.g. onion peels for red, red cabbage for blue, beets for pink and so on). Drapanki are created by using a sharp metal tool to scratch designs on the surface of kraszanki. Pisanki, on the other hand, have designs painted on eggshells with wax before they are dyed. There are also many other ways to decorate eggs –
as seen on the accompanying videos.
Happy Easter, Wesołych Świąt!

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WET MONDAY IN POLAND

Easter in Poland is a two-day festivity including the Wet Monday (Lany Poniedziałek in Polish), called also the Śmigus-Dyngus. Explanations of the pagan roots and regional differences abound but in general, the custom has two components. Smigus refers to people throwing water on each other, while Dyngus invokes the option to bribe (usually with decorated eggs or other Easter foods) the way out of getting wet.

In the past, the tradition was kept alive mostly in rural areas and it was boys who poured the buckets of water on girls. Nowadays, all bets are off and anybody can get wet, whether in urban or rural areas. The assortment of “water delivery tools” has also increased beyond the traditional buckets and ranges from small squirt eggs to …. fire trucks creating a lot of fun and excitement in some Polish communities.

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