About Superstitions

In the book "Krasna Amerika" (Beautiful America), several superstitions popular among the Czech people are mentioned. It seems to me that some of the superstitions are quite "international" ones, as I have heard about them before. Here are a few examples. Are you familiar with any one of them? 

1. When four people shake hands crossing them, some of their relations will get married soon.

2. To save the bees when their owner dies, one should knock on the hive and tell them that their carer has died.

3. Rain on Good Friday is a sign of a very dry year coming.

4. When two sisters get married on the same day, one of them will be unlucky.

 

5. A swallow's nest between the roof beams brings good luck to the house dwellers.

6. If a girl wants to get married next year, she should not look in any mirror on the last day of the current year.

7. Cover the mirrors (for a few days) in the house when somebody dies in it and there is a coffin too. If anybody sees the reflection of the coffin in a mirror, they will die soon.

 

8. When somebody dies in a house, a window needs to be open to let the soul go out.

 

9. Do not start new projects on Friday - it brings bad luck. Friday - bad beginning.

 

10. Spiders are supposed to bring money.

11. Washing feet in a stream on Maundy Thursday is supposed to bring good health during the entire year.

12. Sweeping around somebody's feet is supposed to bring bad luck to that person.

13. A dream about teeth loss - you will learn about somebody's death soon. 

 

Texas Czech Culture and Heritage Center, La Grange, TX

 

Bad/good omens I have learnt about in my family:

• Shaking hands over a threshold brings parting of the two persons is coming soon. So shaking hands while standing in the doorway was always avoided.
  
• Finding a spider in your home is a sign of good luck. I used to have a neighbor who would have never killed a spider, even when it was found in a bathtub. He too believed that "lucky/happy is the home where the spiders are".
  
• Regarding superstition no. 13
  When I dream about loose teeth + blood = sometime later, I learn about a passing of a relative. Loose teeth and no blood in a dream = soon I am told about a death of an acquaintance. This actually runs in our family. My mom's dreams of that kind announce the same future facts.
  

Source: 

"Krasna Amerika: A Study of the Texas Czechs, 1851-1939" by Clinton Machann, James W. Mendl, Eakin Press, Austin, Texas, 1983

I for Ingram

 

I have already mentioned Ingram and its annual Celtic Festival in one of my previous posts. Their stone circle (Stonehenge II), a copy of the one in England, was constructed in 2011.

It is situated in a pretty area, with the Guadalupe River and an open-air theater nearby. The Visual Art Center and a souvenir store are there as well.

Next year, on April 8, a total solar eclipse will be celebrated at Stonehenge II. The eclipse will be in the path of the stone circle, so you can observe the occurrence at the site. Be sure to bring special protective-type glasses (sunglasses are NO good for that) to keep your eyes safe.

The next Celtic Festival is going to be there on April 29. It used to be an all-weekend-long event. After the covid-time break, the festival was turned into a one-day affair. We preferred the previous version, though. You could see more during the three days and enjoy it more than just in one day. You are simply not able to watch everything at the same time.

On September 23/24, 2023, Texas State Arts and Crafts Fair takes place there.

When you come to visit the site, do not miss the copies of the Easter Island heads. You can find them at the parking lot, within walking distance from Stonehenge II.

To learn more about the place and the planned events, visit the website: http://www.hcaf.com/stonehenge-ii/ .

Click here to see an earlier post that I made after our visit to the Celtic Festival in Ingram.

F for Fredericksburg

I am not going to write about the history and early beginnings of Fredericksburg here or what you can see in the town. I did that quite a few times in the posts written earlier. We do have our favorite spots in Fredericksburg and things we enjoy doing. Well, the town is changing and (in my opinion) gradually losing its original charm. More and more stores on Main Streets that have been there almost forever cease their existence, and more and more wine-tasting rooms and art galleries selling art pieces for N thousand dollars each come into being instead. The town is getting in the "all-about partying and drinking" direction more and more, becoming a weekend party gateway. Its traditional German spirit is, little by little, fading away.

Luckily, quite a lot of cultural events are still there. Most of them are run by the people of the older generations. Will the ones who are younger continue their work? Well, I am not sure. Enjoy till they last! I mean the events. Well, at least, we are going to.

Some things have already changed. For example, the lighting of the town's Christmas tree in December. It used to be a merry event with live music, hot chocolate, cookies, lots of cheer, and Christmas spirit. Not long ago, it all was replaced with a tape recording. You can listen to it daily at Christmastime. Now, it is as in any other city. You have heard the recording once, you do not need to listen to it again.

More and more people come to live in the town, bringing more and more traffic. My guess is that soon, Fredericksburg will become just like Gruene. It used to be a separate settlement, in the middle of nowhere. These days it is part of New Braunfels, with millions of cars around the place 24/7. 

Well, we do like Fredericksburg a lot. We just wish we had lived there 20+ years ago. 

During one of our visits to the town, some years ago

---

More posts related to Fredericksburg, TX from the past:

• Fredericksburg - National Museum of The Pacific War 
• Fredericksburg - Side Streets & Roads 
• Fredericksburg, TX & Its Main Street

My Texas Alphabet is quite a particular and personal summary of our hitherto life and my blogging time in Texas.

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

My Texas Alphabet: K for King

This "My Texas Alphabet" post is related to today's Mardi Gras.

 

The King of my heart was once elected Mardi Gras King as well. After the election, he paraded with his royal entourage around the party room.

 Later, his royal highness generously treated the subjects with beads, lollies, and candy. 

The Mardi Gras party was fun. 

A few hair shades ago...

More entries of "My Texas Alphabet" here.

My Polish Alphabet: D for Donuts

Today, Fat Thursday is celebrated in Poland. It is the last Thursday before Lent starts and, traditionally, a lot of donuts are eaten on the day. The Polish donuts are a bit bigger than their American equivalents and have no hole in the center. They are covered with powdered sugar-based glaze and filled with a small amount of marmalade. The more modern version is chocolate, pudding, or cherry filling. Well, I like the marmalade ones best. Of course, you can eat donuts on any day, but the Fat Thursday tradition is quite a good excuse if you feel like stuffing yourself and eating more donuts than one or two. Well, maybe four?

The spelling of the word "pączki" (= donuts) includes the Polish letter "ą" which does not exist in the English alphabet. That is why people tend to write "paczki" instead of "pączki". The trick is "paczki" means "packages" in Polish, not "donuts".

Traditional Polish donuts are deep-fried in oil. Some years ago, I made them as well. There are other options, though. However, instead of frying, I used a recipe for baked donuts. You can find it here: Yeast Jelly Buns.

Have you eaten a donut today? 

 

Photo: Silar, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, Wikimedia Commons

Post Reply - First Communion

This post is a reply to Amanda's blog entries regarding the First Communion Days of her Uncle. Amanda is a family genealogy blogger. The lady's post about Father reminded me of the day of my First Communion. I was curious whether the gift traditions related to the sacrament day celebrations were the same in the US as they were in Poland. That is why I asked Amanda about that.

Inspired by Amanda, I looked at the old photos thinking about the past.

It started raining during the church ceremony on my First Communion Day. It was June and still not very warm. After the morning church celebrations, my godmother (and my aunt) took me home in her car. She simply did not want me to get wet. It caused a bit of confusion as my mom did not know about that and kept looking for me in front of the church. It all ended well though, as we found each other at our home. The aunt and her family had come from another city to our place a day before.

Why I asked Amanda about the gifts. Besides the items related to the religious ceremony which were provided by parents before the day (prayer book, rosary, the candle, candle collar, and decorative cloth/wrap), there was one big (then) thing awaited by every child. The first-ever wristwatch. I got mine from the godmother. Another traditional present was a sterling silver holy medal on a chain. Mom bought me a lovely heart-shaped medal with a picture of Holy Mary on it. Unfortunately, looking at the old photographs, I realized I have no idea what had happened to the medal and how it got lost.

As for the watches - usually they were presented to the children on the Communion morning or earlier, before the church. The result of that was that many kids were more focused on showing their watch to their peers than thinking about the ceremony. That is why my mom did not let me wear mine to the church. I think she was right.

In the afternoon, we came back to the church again for the kids' group photo with our priest and the bishop, and to collect our First Communion certificates. The latter was quite unusual as it was a wooden picture made ready to be hung on the wall. There were so many children who received the First Communion on the day that we had photos taken in two groups - girls only and then, boys only. I counted the girls in the photo I have - there were 39 girls including me.

Another tradition was that, on a day after the First Communion, parents took their kids to a photographer for a photo session. Of course, it was not mandatory and more personal as it was not a group event. However, it was one more gift provided by parents. Filming on the big day was very rare at that time as hardly anybody owned such equipment.

PS

I forgot to write about the myrtle wreath (you can see it in the photos). It was another traditional part of the girl's First Communion look in those days. The wreath was made by my mom who had bought a pot of myrtle plant and grown it for some time. By the church sacrament day, the plant was big enough to make a wreath out of it. The little white flowers were daisies. Mom added them to make it all look less plain-green.

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.