Tag Archives: polish

Polish Christmas Traditions

Nationality: Polish-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 22, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Polish

Nationality: Polish-American
Primary Language: English
Other language(s): Polish
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 22, 2013

My informant was born in Boston, but his parents immigrated to the United States from Poland. He is an American citizen, but he has spent a few summers in Poland, and his parents keep many Polish traditions alive in his household. He told me about some of the similarities and differences between the ways that Christmas is celebrated in America versus in Poland. This is his account:

“In Poland, little kids are told that Santa Claus comes in early December. On the 6th, you come home form school. And there are gifts under your pillow. I don’t know why Santa puts gifts under your pillow, but he does. So they’ll be like, chocolates or little toys. Like small-scale gifts, like Pokemon cards or a Gameboy game. And the Polish tradition is to open gifts on Christmas Eve, not on Christmas Day. These are the gifts from family members, not Santa. And then we would sing Polish carols and stuff. Some of them are the same as English songs, but just in polish, like it’ll be “Jingle Bells” sung in Polish.”

Analysis: My informant’s broad descriptions of some of the differences between Polish and American Christmases seem to indicate that many of our traditions are the same. Some noticeable changes are that Santa visited my informant’s family on December 6th, whereas December 24th is his usual visitation date in the United States. My informant also mentioned that he didn’t understand why Santa put gifts under his pillow—instead of in stockings, as is common in the U.S.—but to me, stockings seem stranger than under pillows. This is one example of how certain traditions can develop seemingly arbitrarily; placing presents under pillows did not really make sense to my informant, but his family did it ever year, and putting presents in stockings seems somewhat silly to me, but my family keeps this tradition alive. Despite the lack of concrete explanations for these habits, they still certainly have meaning. Christmas in particular is especially ritualized because of its religious and cultural significance. And although these rituals may differ from Poland to the United States, the fact that citizens from both nations make efforts to sanctify this holiday show that these cultures both see Christmas as an important holiday. This common ground seems more significant to me than the specific differences in how it is celebrated; essentially, Christmas is a unifying celebration for multiple cultures.

Kutchky’s Army

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: Actress
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 25th, 2012
Primary Language: English

The source’s mother grew up in Oak Park, Illinois, in a predominantly Italian neighborhood. Most of the families on her street didn’t have more than three children.

When she was growing up, her mother and a lot of the other people in the neighborhood had a saying, if they have a lot of something, they would say they have enough for Kutchky’s Army. So if they had a lot of food, for example, they’d say “We have enough food to feed Kutchky’s Army.” Growing up, the source’s mother always assumed it was a reference to a real army in a war.

However, it was really a reference to the one Polish family on the block that had at least ten children.

Now, neither the source, nor the mother live in Chicago, but its been adopted as a common saying inside the family, and their friends from back home in Chicago.

 

Chicago has been, and still is one of the most segregated cities in the country. I think the saying reflects the tension between established ethnic groups in certain neighborhoods, and newcomers from different ethnic backgrounds. The saying probably started as a way for the established Italian families in the neighborhood to playfully separate themselves from the Kutchky’s, who they probably saw as Polish interlopers.

Polish Pierogi Recipe

Nationality: Polish American
Age: 83
Occupation: Avocado Farmer
Residence: Temecula, CA
Performance Date: 4/8/12
Primary Language: English

The informant is 83 years old. He is Polish, but was born in Michigan.

Over Easter Brunch, my informant told me about his own Easter tradition that he used to celebrate with his family:

“Every Easter, we used to make Pierogis. These were somewhat of a delicacy for my family and they were more expensive to make than anything else my family usually had to eat. Pierogis are made with cabbage and pork, kind of like a Polish ravioli. We would only ever be able to make them for special occasions, so we chose to make them for our Easter Meal.”

Recipe:

Dough:

2 cups flour, sifted

1 egg

½ cup lukewarm water

½ cup milk

1 tsp. salt

2 Tbsp. melted butter

In a large bowl, beat all ingredients. Add additional flour to firm if needed. Roll out and double. Cut into ½ inch circles.

 

Filling:

1lb. of pork

3 carrots

1 leek

1 celery stalk

1 onion

Butter or oil for frying

Parsley leaves

2 eggs

Salt & pepper

Wash beef and put in salted water. Cook, until the meat softens. Peel and cut into small strips. Throw vegetables into stock with meat and leave gently cooking for 30 minutes. While the meat is being cooked with vegetables peel onion and cut it into cubes. Fry onion on the frying pan with the addition of butter, until lightly browned. Take the meat out of stock and tear into smaller pieces. Add fried onion and mix everything. Grind the mixture of onion and meat in a meat mincer. Chop parsley leaves up and add to stuffing. Break two raw eggs into a meat mixture. Add salt and pepper. Mix. Season to taste. Arrange stuffing on pierogi dough circles and carefully glue the dough, forming pierogi. Cook pierogi in salted water. After floating to the surface cook until become soft. Then sift out. Pan-fry the cooked pierogi. Use butter or sunflower oil. Fry pierogi, until browned on both sides. Serve.

Marzanna

Nationality: Polish
Occupation: Reference Librarian
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 2007
Primary Language: Polish
Language: Russian, French, English, Spanish, Latin

My informant was raised in Poland and has lived there most of her life.  In the late 1970’s, she first participated in this traditional festival as one of her Girl Scout activities.  She explained that this festival dates back to pagan times, and that everyone was allowed to participate.  They would build a doll of straw and tree branches and dress it in old clothes.  The clothes were supposed to look rather trashy and they would decorate the doll to look ugly.  Then everyone would gather around to throw the doll into a river.  Hence, the Americanized name for this festival is the Drowning of the Doll.

Traditionally, the doll symbolizes winter.  After months of freezing weather, the Polish wish to free themselves of the cold, so they personify the winter as a doll.  My informant explained that the doll “symbolizes winter, so it’s ugly.”  Then, when the doll is thrown into the river, it’s like they’re killing the winter that has passed and they can look forward to warmer months.

The festival is only celebrated by the Polish because it represents their unique pagan past, a time without the foreign influences of modern times.  This does not mean that this holiday is only celebrated in Poland.  My informant has not attended Marzanna since her youth, but she has heard of instances of people of Polish heritage having their own festivals in other countries to connect them with their homeland

Eve of St. John’s Fires

Nationality: Polish
Occupation: Reference Librarian
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 2007
Primary Language: Polish
Language: Russian, French, English, Spanish, Latin

On the midsummer solstice, or the Eve of St. John, fires are lit and maidens wear wreaths in their hair to celebrate the longest day of the year.

 

My informant first attended this festival with her family as a little girl, and mostly remembered the beautiful wreaths all of the girls would wear in their hair.  She was also able to recall the many fires that were lit and that the men in attendance would jump across them.  Also, those in attendance would stay out all day without sleeping to celebrate the length of the day and to appreciate the sunshine.  At the end of the festival, all of the girls will throw their wreaths into the fires.

One of the most interesting aspects of this festival is that the different flowers worn in a girl’s wreath have different meanings.  My informant remembers wearing white roses, which she remembers symbolized simplicity and purity.  Perhaps the most significant flowers worn in the wreaths were lavender and myrtle, and they both represent love.  If a girl wears one of these flowers in her wreath, throws her wreath into the fire and the burning wreath is thrown into the river and recovered by a single man, the girl would be said to be engaged to that man, by tradition. Symbolically, this union represents the birth of a new relationship, and the longer days are conducive to this birth.

This festival is uniquely Polish and has been celebrated for more than a thousand years.  While mostly celebrative in the native Poland, my informant knows several Poles in other countries that also celebrate the Eve of St. John’s and she believes it’s, “because it’s romantic to look back on one’s culture.”