Polish Language Blog

So… it’s that time of the year again. The time of parties, bigger parties and totally massive parties. What are your plans for New Year’s Eve (Sylwester)? Going anywhere? Doing anything special?

We’ll stay at home and watch TV. And then watch our terrified cats as they try to hide under the bed when the fireworks go off.

This is also the time of New Year’s resolutions, and I do believe I mentioned this phrase in my previous post.

• Postanowienia noworoczne =

• postanowienia, which is plural of “postanowienie” – noun, neuter, can be translated as “resolution” or “decision.”

+

• noworoczne, which is plural of “noworoczny” (sing. fem. noworoczna, sing. neuter: noworoczne, pl. person-masculine: noworoczni, pl. all others: noworoczne) – adjective, which in turn consists of these two words:

• nowy + roczny = new + yearly.

Ok, that was a bit convoluted. But you see how these phrases are constructed – you can take them apart word by word, and then you can take the words apart, too, until you get the basic building blocks.

Anyway, let’s move on.
I don’t normally do the whole New Year’s resolutions bit, but this year I thought I’d give it a try. And then hold myself accountable. Maybe it will finally force to me to do the things I’ve been so diligently avoiding so far.

So, here are Anna’s resolutions for 2009:

• Go to Kościerzyna and Kartuzy and visit an elementary school, or two. I want to see kids being taught the Kashubian language. I won’t believe it until I see it with my very own eyes. Incidentally, I had a conversation about it with my father not so long ago, and he totally surprised me by breaking into a Kashubian folk song. He said his mother had taught him and while he can sing it and recite the words, he doesn’t understand what they mean. Not all of them, anyway.

• Don’t begin every other sentence with “so.” It’s annoying.

• Stop thinking about going back to school and actually DO something about it. But that, on the other hand, prompts questions to which I don’t know the answers. Like, “What should I study? English or Polish? Or maybe something else altogether? Russian perhaps?” and “Where should I study?” and all that. Any suggestions will be much appreciated.

• Read more books in Polish. After seeing glowing reviews of Dorota Masłowska pretty much everywhere I turned, I got my hands on her debut novel “Wojna polsko-ruska pod flagą biało-czerwoną” in Polish and the English translation – “Snow White and Russian Red” (US version) and meh, not my type at all. I read both books side by side, and disliked both of them equally. But this little exercise did inspire me to read more books by Polish authors. So, (yes, I know, don’t start every other sentence with “so.” But it’s not 2009 yet, ok? I’ll work on it next year) that’s on my to-do list for 2009.

Those were the big resolutions. I have a few less important ones, as well.
And how about you, my dear readers?

• Jakie są Wasze plany, postanowienia i cele do osiągnięcia w 2009?

What are your (plural of “wasze”) plans, resolutions and goals to achieve in 2009?

See you next year!

Soooo…. The shortest day of the year is behind us (that’s a good thing, at least in my book, I like to see daylight for a bit more than just a few hours), Christmas is behind us (that’s a good thing too – no more carp for at least another year, yay!). Now there’s only New Year’s Eve to look forward too. And what else? Loosing all the weight we’ve gained during the holiday season. Making New Year’s resolutions (postanowienia noworoczne), which we won’t stick to anyway. But who does? So what else is there to look forward to? Spring cleaning and mycie okien (window washing)? Ugh…

Nah, the only one of the bunch that I look forward to is the days getting longer now.
When I was a kid, I heard this saying that they’re getting longer like this:

• Na Boże Narodzenie – na kurze stąpnienie. Na Nowy Rok – na barani skok.

It means, more or less, that for Christmas – like a hen’s step, for New Year’s – like a ram’s leap. Which means: very little (though I can’t imagine just how big an average hen’s step would be) and quite a lot – that’s referring to the poor ram leaping, of course.

My friend just gave me a long and interesting (surprise, surprise!) lecture about the ancient pagan Slavic traditions that incorporated themselves neatly into the Christian reality. These hens a-stepping and rams a-leaping supposedly had something to do with it. You know, winter solstice… In all honesty, what the Slavs (Słowianie) were doing wasn’t all that different from the stuff practiced by the Celts, and the Vikings, and other old cultures.

But why dwell on old traditions, when we have new traditions to embrace and uphold? After-Christmas sales! According to the site cogdziezaile, poświąteczne przeceny (after-Christmas sales) have already begun. And just like elsewhere in the world, the stores in Poland will do their best to convince customers to part with their hard-earned cash.

And here’s a list in Polish of what (co), where (gdzie) and how much (za ile) off you can expect.

Tomorrow is Wigilia (Christmas Eve) and it’s one day that most Polish families take very seriously. I said “most” because some celebrate it in a less traditional way – like at an all-inclusive resort in Madeira or Tenerife, for example.

But for most Poles, Wigilia means getting together with their extended family, eating huge amounts of food and exchanging Christmas presents.

Wigilia is not only the day before Christmas, it’s also the traditional Christmas Eve supper (dinner) that’s supposed to consist of different 12 courses/dishes. Now, I don’t have much experience with that, because as I mentioned on this blog already, my family was not the traditional type when it came to cooking. So while I’m familiar with barszcz, I’ve never seen “uszka” in it. Żurek I know only from other people’s stories. And I have no clue what “kutia” is. We did have karp (carp, ugh, hate that fish) and śledzie, either as “rolmopsy” or “w śmietanie” (herring, either as rolmops or with sourcream – now, that I can eat!), zupa grzybowa (mushroom soup), barszcz czerwony (red borscht), some sort of salad (the one with veggies and eggs all chopped up into small bits and slathered in mayo), some pickles and whatever cake my mom managed not to turn into “zakalec.” Sometimes we’d have savory galaretka, which I quite liked.

Traditionally, Wigilia is supposed to be a meatless affair, but in a house full of picky eaters, fried chicken was a necessity.

There would always be an extra setting on the table – traditionally, for an unexpected guest or a lost traveler, because nobody should be spending Wigilia alone. I’d normally pile my chicken bones, or anything I didn’t want to eat, on that extra plate.

We never started the celebration with a prayer, but with me hogging the Christmas wafer (opłatek) and refusing to share with anyone. What can I say, I liked the stuff. It was crunchy and had no flavor. When we did manage to do the traditional thing and share opłatek with each other, it inevitably ended up with me collecting all the pieces and dunking them in my glass of cherry juice to make them turn red. We never sang any Christmas carols (kolędy) either, simply because nobody could remember any words past the first two lines.

Afterwards, it was time to open our presents. One time when my sister was little, our aunt dressed up as Santa Claus. And she was a very fierce Santa, too. My sister had nightmares for days to come.
And then, as a punishment for my atrocious behavior during dinner, I’d be delegated to help with doing the dishes.

We never went to the midnight mass (pasterka), choosing instead to sit in front of the TV and watch “A Christmas Carol” for the umpteenth time.

And Christmas day itself was boredom incarnate. More food, more TV, more dishes to wash. I didn’t quite mind, I could go to my room, stick headphones on my head, crawl under the blankets and not come out until the 27th.

Oh, how I miss the good old days!

PS. Regarding the hay from the last post – I asked ten Polish women (real Polish women with names like Katarzyna and Agnieszka living in places like Łomża and Słupsk) about the proper placement of hay for Wigilia and the answers I got were:
1. It can go on the table.
2. It can go under the tablecloth.
3. It can go under the table.
4. It can go into four corners of the room.
5. Save yourself some trouble and just give it directly to your dog/cat/small child, because you’ll be stuck cleaning it up afterwards anyway.

So, in other words – it doesn’t really matter where the hay goes, as long as it’s there.

Enjoy your holidays and I’ll see you again on the 27th!

Images: Wikipedia