Polish Christians celebrate Fat Thursday before Ash Wednesday by eating doughnuts and other sweet treats. This marks the beginning of Lent, which lasts 46 days. During Lent, Christians avoid bad habits and prepare for Easter. On Easter Sunday, people attend church for mass in the morning and share a blessed hard-boiled egg for breakfast. Other Polish Easter traditions include decorating Easter baskets with symbolic foods, burning and drowning a doll representing Miss Winter on the first day of spring, and playing pranks or sprinkling others with water on Wet Monday. Common Easter symbols featured in decorations and foods are eggs, lambs, bunnies, and chickens as signs of new life.

1. POLISH SPRING AND EASTER
TRADITIONS AND CUSTOMS

2. The Thursday before Ash
Wednesday is known as Fat
(Shrove Thursday) to Polish
Christians. It is also called Pączki
Day. The most popular dishes are
pączki (doughnuts) and faworki
(French dough fingers). They are
cooked in every house. On this day
people eat a lot of sweets, cakes
and other caloric dishes.
On that that you should eat fatty
food. If you don’t, you will have bad
luck.

3. ASH WEDNESDAY
Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent. On
Ash Wednesday blessed ash is sprinkled on
the people’s heads in the shape of a cross.
Lent lasts for 46 days. During Lent
Christians avoid bad habits and prepare for
Easter.

4. This event takes place on the first day of spring.
Children usually make a doll of hay or straw and old
clothes. This doll is called Marzanna. She is meant to
be Miss Winter. The children take the doll to the
bank of the river. Then they burn it and drown it in
the river. They hope she will not return until the next
year.

5. Prima Aprilis
April Fool’s Day (All Fool’s Day) is
celebrated on 1 April every year. It is
not a national holiday but it’s very
popular in Poland. It is called Prima
Aprillis in our country. On this day
people play pranks on each other.
Children like playing jokes. Some of
them are fun and some of them are
not. For example, someone can
write: “Kick me” on a piece of paper
and stick it to his friend’s back.
Adults also like playing jokes. They
may tell their friend that he must
phone the given telephone number
because Mr Seal wants to speak to
him. Of course the number they give
is the phone number of the zoo.

7. Holy Saturday – the last day of Lent. On that day we go to
church with the Easter basket.
The Easter basket is one of the
unique Easter traditions in
Poland. The basket is prepared on
Saturday before Easter Sunday.
The basket is decorated with
boxwood. A typical basket
contains symbolic food like this:
bacon, bread, Easter bread
(babka), butter, cottage cheese,
colored eggs and a lamb.

8. For Polish people Easter is the
most important public holiday. We
start celebrating at 6 o’clock. We
go to church for the mass. Then
we share a blessed hard-boiled
egg (it’s similar to sharing the holy
wafer at Christmas) and eat
breakfast.

9. Wet Monday
Śmigus Dyngus
On this day we sprinkle each other with water. It brings good
luck throughout the year.
In the past boys sprinkled girls. If a girl was wet on that day it
meant she was popular and would get married soon. If she
didn’t want to be wet, she had to give some Easter eggs.

10. EASTER SYMBOLS

11. AN EGG
An egg symbolizes new life, spring and fertility.
We dye them and decorate. We call them pisanki.

12. A LAMB
The Easter lamb represents Jesus. The lamb was often
sacrificed as offerings to God by the Hebrews.
It’s made of bread or dough.

13. A BUNNY
These animals give birth to many offsprings in spring. For
this reason the bunny serves as a symbol of new life.

14. A CHICKEN
The chicks also symbolize new life and re-birth.