POLISH CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS at EASTER
Sometimes during Holy Week, Polish housewives prepare the food for the traditional celebration of Easter. They fill a basket of foods called Hallow Fare (Swieconka). This consists of ham, Polish sausage, cheese, coffee cake, round bread topped with a symbol of the Cross, decorated Easter eggs, salt, pepper, horseradish, beets, and a small lamb fashioned from butter representing Christ, the lamb of God sacrificed for our salvation. Even the children prepare their Easter baskets, which have been saved from year to year. These are gaily decorated with ribbons and flowers; filled with Easter candies and treats, and all baskets are then taken to church on Holy Saturday to be blessed by the priest or deacon with holy water. These baskets remain untouched until after the Resurrection Mass on Easter Sunday.
As a sign of new life, the egg occupies an important place in the Easter festivities of the Polish people. For several days before Easter, the eggs are gaily decorated and ornamented in three ways: malowanki are done in colors; pisanki are marked in geometric figures and animal designs; skrobanki are done in solid colors with figures on them. To this day, Polish Easter eggs are greatly admired and appreciated. It is not unusual for Poles to decorate several dozen eggs to distribute to friends and visiting family on Easter Sunday. Not all persons are aware of the religious significance behind this quaint custom.
After the Easter Mass, the entire family returns home to partake of the blessed hallow fare or Swieconka. The father cuts one blessed egg, as a symbol of unity, into as many pieces as there are family members present and shares it with them, extending best wishes. Again, this wish is for a better new life in the hereafter as well as a “new” spiritual life while here on earth.
Easter Sunday is always spent at home with friends and loved ones. As at Christmas, Easter is an occasion of traditional Polish hospitality when everybody is invited and welcomed to celebrate the great feast.