Good Tidings To You

During the year, while doing all the research dedicated to the dear departed ones, I often had a thought, "Perhaps, I should spend more time with the living". 

The season came to do so (which brings less of my online activity here).

The holiday period has been very busy in a nice way - with cooking, baking, season's meetings, visiting, tasting delicatessens made in somebody else's kitchen, and Christmas caroling. I do enjoy it all even when it makes me a bit tired.

In 2025, I am planning to reactivate my corners of the Internet and create some more posts, regarding our direct ancestors and non-relations as well. My plan is also to continue my two Alphabet and "They Lived in Texas" series, among others. How I will manage, the time will show.

⭐

Wishing all our close and distant relations, friends and acquaintances, and last but not least, the followers of my Internet pages, who kindly spare their time to read my posts - a blessed holiday season and a prosperous New Year, with good days only.

Good tidings to you all!

 

E for Easter Basket

 

 

People in Poland prepare Easter baskets on Easter Saturday (which is part of the Polish Easter customs). Traditionally, pieces (samples) of foods that are eaten/shared by a family at breakfast on Easter Sunday are placed in a nicely decorated basket. In our family, it was some bread, butter, salt and pepper (mixed together), white sausage, a slice of ham, a hard-boiled egg, and some yeast cake. Besides it all, there was always a decorative lamb in the center of the basket.

 

On Saturday morning, the baskets are taken to church to be blessed by a priest. They were placed on a special table, usually in the church hall, and blessed after a short prayer/ceremony. 

When we were little, we enjoyed watching other people's basket contents - chocolate bunnies and eggs covered with colorful tinfoil happened. However, wooden eggs beat everything.

As for the eggs - after a dilemma: "shelled or unshelled hard-boiled egg" in the basket, we chose the latter option. It seemed more OK to us not to toss the "blessed" shell in the trash later.

Our Easter basket lamb - always the same

After the blessing of the baskets, we usually stepped into the church for a short prayer and to visit Christ's grave (church holiday exposition of course). 

When we were old enough to walk to church (at primary school), either my sister or I took the basket to church. Some kids tended to sample the basket foods on their way back from church to their home. Well, I did not do that.

Embroidery by my grandma

When back at home, the basket content went to the fridge. It came back in the basket on the Easter Sunday breakfast table.

How the breakfast started - Mom cut the food samples into pieces and each person sitting at the table took a piece of each sample. Then we ate more - more eggs, more sausage, and more of everything else.

Mazurek - my favorite Polish Easter cake

C for Christmas Eve and Christmas

This post is also the "C" entry of "My Polish Alphabet".

 

"C" for Christmas Eve and Christmas.

Somebody has asked me what the Christmas traditions were in my family home in Poland. Well, here's more about that.

 

6 December - St. Nicholas' day

 

On the 5 December evening, we - kids cleaned our winter boots and placed them in the hall, near the main door for St. Nicholas to find them. He filled them with sweets, tangerines, and little gifts in the night but only when the boots were clean. In the morning on 6 December, we rushed to our boots to see what St. Nicholas brought us in the night. We were good children, so St. Nicholas never brought us a tree rod instead of candy. The wooden rod was meant for the bad ones only.

24 December - Christmas Eve - the main part of Christmas celebrations.

 

In the morning, the Christmas tree was put up and decorated. In the evening, the festive Christmas Eve supper and family gathering took place. According to a tradition, the meal always started when the first star appeared in the sky. When the table was set, we were looking in the dark sky through the windowpane and waiting for that star to show up. At that time, mom was finishing all the cooking. Another tradition - an additional plate was placed on the table for an unexpected guest (who never came). The initial moment of the supper was sharing the Christmas wafer with each and every guest/family member who was present at the table (provided by the church) and greeting each other. Then the meal started.

 

Christmas wafer

 

The menu: 12 dishes were served (symbolizing 12 months of the year/12 apostles). The counting included drinks, sides, and bread as well. For good luck in each month of the new coming year, everybody was supposed to taste at least each of the 12 dishes.

Some of the traditional Christmas Eve (meatless) menu items which we did not particularly like, were replaced with the ones of our choice - we had canned peaches in syrup instead of dried fruit compote, and fried cod instead of fried carp.  Some of those dishes were made only once a year - so, in that way, they were really special. My favorites were boletus soup with homemade pasta and noodles with poppy seeds, honey, and raisins. 

 

Boletus soup with noodles

 

Other dishes were more common, like for example herrings with oil and onion, potatoes, and potatoes-and-vegetable salad. All the dishes (besides canned peaches) were made from scratch by mom. On Christmas Eve, alcohol was not drunk in our home.

Although we sometimes made gingerbread cookies, Christmas in Poland is not exactly about cookies, but it is about seasonal cakes.

 

Poppy seeds logs - making them was very time-consuming. First, we ground the poppy seeds and shelled, and chopped walnuts - that was the kids' job. Then, mom cooked the ground poppy seeds in a very big pot. When it was ready, she added the walnuts, honey, vanilla sugar, and raisins to the seeds and mixed it all.

 

From the right: keks (fruitcake,), popy seeds log, gingerbread

 

Next, it was time to make (by hand) yeast dough for the logs. All in all, it always took hours before the three logs were baked and ready to be iced. I loved them. There was always more poppy seed filling in them than the yeast cake.

Gingerbread with a plum marmalade layer inside - like everything else - was made from scratch.

Polish type of fruitcake (keks), totally different from the Texas one - it was a loaf type cake full of dried fruit and raisins. 

Keks

If it was not enough, there were also traditional Christmas snacks, a must-have of the season: apples, tangerines, and shelled walnuts.

After the meal carols were sung and presents were opened. The latter had been brought by Starman (Gwiazdor), who looked exactly like St. Nicholas (and Santa Claus - the difference was a long robe of the previous two gift-givers).

 

 

Around midnight, we all went (on foot) to church for Midnight Mass. Decades ago, winters were much colder in Poland, I recall the sound of crunchy frozen snow that accompanied us while we were walking for the service.

After the mass, we visited with our neighbors. The place of the meeting changed every other year - it was either our home or theirs. Anyway, then, we had some cooked sauerkraut with sausage and other hefty food. Adults talked sitting at the table, kids played around or sometimes under the table. Around 3 a.m. the visit was over.

 

Gingerbread cookies

25 December - Christmas Day - was the time of staying at home, visiting family, and enjoying the holiday time. No extra food was cooked as there were plenty of delicious leftovers from the Christmas Eve supper.

26 December - Second Day of Christmas was a day off/state holiday as well. More time for festive celebrations and friends and family gatherings.

 

Secret Santa with Polish Ladies Abroad / Secret Santa z Klubem Polki

This holiday season I have been part of Secret Santa at Polish Ladies Abroad Club. The idea was to send each other small gifts to be open on December 6th. The date was chosen because it is St. Nicholas Day, traditionally observed in Poland. On Dec. 6th, St. Nick brings little items, sweets and fruits to good children. The holiday action has spread in time though and some of us (the Club members) are likely to receive their gifts around Christmas.

I am very happy to tell you that my Secret Santa package arrived yesterday (from a Santa in Germany). He wrote on the envelope: 'Do not open before Christmas', but who could wait so long?!!
What I found inside - see the picture below - such cute chocolates and Christmas socks 'design yourself' set!
I am going to share the sweets with my husband, we will enjoy them at Christmas. My self designed socks are going to be beautiful, not ugly! When I finish decorating them, I will post the picture of my special socks to share it with you.

Thank you Santa!

So much joy your gift has brought!

Pierwszy raz w tym roku uczestniczę w świątecznej 'akcji' Klubu Polki na Obczyźnie zwanej Secret Santa. Jeśli ktoś pamięta z czasów szkolnych losowanie karteczek, komu zrobimy paczkę na Mikołaja, to mniej więcej o to chodzi. Z tą różnicą, że nasz klub to 'Mikołaje' mieszkający na całym świecie, a nie w pobliskim rejonie szkolnym. Poza tym, w odróżnieniu od mikołajek klasowych, nasze są naprawdę 'secret', czyli do samego końca nie wiemy, od kogo przyleci do nas prezencik.

Wczoraj dostałam podarunek od mojego Secret Santa. Gwiazdor napisał na kopercie 'Nie otwierać przed gwiazdką, ale kto by tak długo wytrzymał? Co znalazłam w środku, widać na zdjęciu. Bardzo fikuśne i urocze czekoladki oraz zestaw do kreatywnego ozdobienia świątecznych skarpet. Nie wiem czemu swetry i owe skarpety nazywane są 'ugly' (brzydkie), ja je lubię. A moje skarpety mikołajowe będą piękne!

Czekoladkami podzielę się z mężem - będziemy się nimi delektować w Święta. Po udekorowaniu skarpet od Mikołaja, oczywiście zaprezentuję Wam na blogu rezultat mojej kreatywności.

Dziekuję Mikołaju - Twój podarunek sprawił mi wiele radości!

No i zdobienie przede mną, ale uciecha!

My Hand Painted T-Shirts: Christmas Option

I painted this T-shirt as a Christmas gift for myself.

I use brand new, cotton T-shirts. The painting process requires pre-washing the fabric. That is why I wash and iron each and every T-shirt before I start painting my patterns on them. The painting itself is rather time-consuming. Due to the paints properties, I usually need to put the layers of paint gradually, so it takes me at least a couple of days (not to mention the time of pre-washing, drying and ironing) to decorate a T-shirt. Creating a T-shirt decoration is always fun!