Preparing for Easter

Easter is another of those celebrations where I like to continue traditions I grew up with. As a Polish Roman Catholic Family, Christmas and Easter were the two biggest celebrations. Here's a link describing some of the Easter traditions we celebrated.

In the next little while, we'll be starting on the eggs for our basket. I'll be blowing some eggs for wax resist colouring, though I might keep some raw. Raw are easier to dye, since they don't bob and float or fill with dye that needs to be drained. We shall see. We'll also be doing kraszanki and kit dyed eggs like last year, too. Those and some Dragon Eggs will be done as late as possible. Our basket always has peeled eggs in it, as even peeling eggs counts as work, and no work is to be done on Easter Sunday, if at all possible.

Here are a few links about Easter eggs and the traditions around them for you to enjoy.

Pisanki (pdf)

Polish Easter

Polish Easter recipes

The Decorated Easter Egg

Easter Eggs at Poland by Mail

Lithuanian Easter eggs - these patterns are much closer to the ones I'm familiar with.

Swieconka (pdf) - listing contents and symbolism of the traditional Polish Easter basket.

Easter Saturday in Poland - bringing our baskets in for blessing was a favourite event for me. I loved seeing all the different things people included in their baskets and wondered about them. Some were giant baskets, overflowing with breads, sausages, fruits and a bottle of wine. Others were nothing more than a loaf of hearty rye bread, already sliced. Soon the entire front of the church would be filled with 40 or more baskets, and the smells would be just heavenly!

At some point, my mother started to bring an extra empty basket. She would put in near the alter, slightly apart from the others, and add a few items from our own baskets. Others would add to it as well, soon filling it - a gift for the priest. As one of the only people who had horseradish of our own, my mother would also dig up extra roots to share with others.