Day 1 (Great Saturday)
People prepare a baskets full of goodies: colorful eggs, some bread, a piece of sausage, salt, a sugar lamb, maybe some fluffy fake chicken or bunnies to decoration. They take it to church were the food is blessed. It’s gonna be eaten on an Easter breakfast on Sunday.
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| Easter basket |
Day 2 (Easter Sunday)
The families meet to have breakfast together. They share the eggs from the basket, say each other wishes and feast. The traditional Easter dishes include:
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| Żurek - traditional Easter soup |
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| Mazurek - traditional Easter cake |
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| Baba wielkanocna - another traditional Easter cake |
and all sorts of eggs (with mayo or stuffed), meats, salads...
Day 3 (Wet Monday)
The other name of an Easter Monday is Wet Monday (in Polish “Lany Poniedziałek” or “Śmigus-Dyngus”) because traditionally everyone splashes each other with water! This tradition comes yet from pagan times when people in villages were beating (lightly, nothing brutal :P) girls’ legs with willow twigs and splashing them with water. If some girl was omitted, there was a superstition that she wouldn’t find a husband quickly. Nowadays just splashing with water stayed (thank you, I wouldn’t like being beaten with twigs, even lightly:P) and everyone splashes everyone, even strangers. Some people exaggerate pouring whole buckets of water on people going to church or even elders turning the tradition not to be so nice anymore as it’s supposed to be fun, but that’s a different story. As long as it’s made in a civiliezed way it’s a lot of fun:) Especially children love this day.
Happy Easter!
Wesołych Świąt! 
Interesting to know about this :)
ReplyDeleteAhhh recuerdo cuando me explicaste esta tradición =D ¿tu celebras el Lunes Mojado? Aquí es en sábado pero ya no podemos mojarnos =(
ReplyDeleteSi alguien me ataca con un cubo de agua en la calle, locelebrare :P
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing as it sounds great. I hope you have a fantastic Easter Weekend :)
ReplyDeleteHappy Easter to you ^0^ It's interesting, I've just got a letter from my friend who is staying in Poland as an exchange student (Wroclaw) and she has sent me instant zurek ^.^ I think I need to try it today! I love your posts about Polish traditions and lifestyle!
ReplyDeleteI thought once about sending an instant soup in a letter but after all the idea seemed weird to me, haha. I know that many people who aren't into cooking make instants for Easter here:) I cooked żurek myself this year but didn't eat it because I don't like :P I just tried a spoon to check if it's alright before adding the sausage.
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