Halloween in Poland Review

Halloween po polsku – Our 1st Halloween party in Poland with kids

Our Halloween in Poland – The Positives and The Negatives – My first contact with the negatives of Halloween

Halloween is around the corner… Preparing for Halloween

We are lucky ducks! A fantastic surprise from our favorite Polish Housewife

Halloween 2011 A rocking Halloween party and one of our best

How does Poland celebrate Halloween? Only I thought this funny

With all due respect, Bishops of Poland,… Where I learned that Halloween opens the door to satanism, in case you didn’t know.

A white Halloween My first snowy Halloween and our first Halloween in the village

And Halloween 2013 may just be called The Halloween that wasn’t. We haven’t planned our usual party and this year will probably be more of a chill-out than a blow-out. We’ll see.
Have a good one!

A white Halloween

Our Halloween celebration was a little bit foiled by the weather (it snowed all day) and a little bit by our neighbors, but the candy was abundant so I don’t think anyone took notice.

It was our first Halloween in the Village. The girls had a lot of fun decorating their room.

 


The girls were also very lucky to get a surprise package of goodies from our favorite Polish housewife from Poznan. Thank you Lois. Everybody loved the candy necklaces and the eyeball/gumballs. The glow sticks especially came in handy as the electricity went out on our street while we were trick-or-treating.
All was set – the house decorated – the costumes on – the food made…





   …but no guests. Two little guests from our street went to their Babcia and another chickened-out (that’s what his mom said). Luckily, my sister-in-law showed up with her family and also Lizzie’s friend from school came with her parents all the way from the City in the snow.
Despite the snow, we decided to brave the streets (well, street) and visit the pre-arranged trick-or-treating homes. Some neighbors declined our visit which is perfectly cool with us. Some neighbors accepted and went overboard with the candy. Thank you very much neighbors. And some neighbors chickened-out or just simply forgot we were coming. Anyhow, it was too cold for tricking. In the end the trick was on me – terrible cold :( Hmmm, snow, a red nose and red cheeks and soon I’ll have a belly that shakes like a bowl full of jelly (if I eat any more Halloween candy). Christmas, anyone?

 

Happy Halloween…til next year!

PS 1 Rosie, aka, Minnie Mouse was very happy to go to the “elementarz” and look at the graves with all the candles.

PS 2  After a very unpleasant visit by a neighbor (and not for Halloween) who didn’t knock, who greeted me in the bathroom upstairs (not cool), who gave me a disgusting look and then licked his lips (also not cool)  and tracked manure all through the house and then scraped off his boot on the leg of my kitchen table (the most uncool of them all), I declare that from now on I will always, always lock the door to our house.

How does Poland celebrate Halloween?

This is the top keyword search phrase for Kielbasa Stories this week. The second top keyword search phrase is gross and makes me regret using the word kielbasa in the name of my blog.
So how does Poland celebrate Halloween?
I would have to say, grudgingly.

A conversation I had with Misiu just came to mind. We were sitting in the one and only coffeehouse in my little American hometown this summer just sipping our coffees and watching the world go by. Misiu was trying to come up with the proper word to describe my hometown.

“Quaint?” I offered.

“No,” he said.

“Charming?”

“Nope.”

“Rural? Agricultural? Out-of-the-way? Folksy?”

“Nope.  I was thinking ramshackle.”

“Oh, ramshackle. I can see it.”

:)

With all due respect, Bishops of Poland,…

…I think you missed the point.

You can disagree with Halloween in Poland for many reasons. I’m American and I celebrate Halloween in Poland for one reason and one reason only – my children. I didn’t celebrate Halloween here before I had kids and I will probably stop (excluding the occasional jack o’ lantern) when they reach the age that they are “too cool” to celebrate it. I choose to celebrate Halloween with my children here in Poland because I want to share a bit of my childhood with them. We also go with them to the cemetery on November 1st and 2nd. They are Polish children after all. Well, Polish/American.
I have such fond memories of dressing up, bobbing for apples, going trick-or-treating. I went to Catholic School and we had to go to Mass every single morning, but what a fantastic morning it was when our priest conducted Mass dressed up as Dracula. Seriously. We were in awe. Our priest along with the nuns (usually dressed as witches) escorted us each year on a Halloween parade around the neighborhood. It was a lot of fun. I also remember my grandmother’s neighbors who dressed up as Frankenstein’s monster and the Bride of Frankenstein every year. They decorated their front porch with scary decorations and lights and even played scary music. It was great. I want my kids to have some fun Halloween memories too. I don’t want to import Halloween to Poland and insert it into Polish society. We celebrate on a small scale with willing participants only. If it helps, I would gladly remove McDonald’s and Starbucks from Poland if I could. Poland for the Polish ;)
OK, I got a little carried away. Back to Halloween.
You can disagree with Halloween in Poland because it encourages consumption (because candles and wreaths and Sidolux for cleaning graves are all free).
You can disagree with Halloween in Poland because it is cultural colonization from the west (so drop that Happy Meal and put down that Coke).
You can disagree with Halloween in Poland because you think it encourages hooliganism, or you can disagree with Halloween in Poland because you think it is stupid or because  masz wszystko w dupie.
That’s fine with me.
But you cannot disagree with Halloween in Poland because it promotes the occult. Because it doesn’t. You cannot send letters home to parents that celebrating Halloween breaks the 1st commandment. Because it doesn’t. You cannot tell kids that carving a pumpkin is a sin. Because it isn’t.
Does Andrzejki promote the occult? It is more mystical than Halloween. Does Karnawal promote the occult? Kids’ karnawal parties look pretty much like Halloween minus the dynia.
And what do you think of this poster? Pretty funny, isn’t it? Or pretty drastic? We had the exact same situation with Rosie. Suddenly, she couldn’t fall asleep at night. We couldn’t leave the room. What was going on? The explanation was surprisingly simple. She’s 4. She goes to pre-school. She is not signed up for Religia but the teachers seem to forget about that and let her in the room during Religia. She’s too little to tune out the Religia teacher. Soooo, we spent one week checking under the bed for “Niewidzialny Jezus”. Thanks Religion Teacher.

If you’d like to “sracz i rzygać jednoczesnie” (as Misiu so eloquently put it), you can read the opinion of Polish bishops on the topic of Halloween.
http://www.stefczyk.info/wiadomosci/polska/biskup-ostrzega-przed-halloween
http://warszawa.radioplus.pl/Wiadomosci/Warszawa/Warszawscy-biskupi-ostrzegaja-przed-Halloween
Here are only two articles but you can easily find more and more.
Here are some more opinions about Halloween w Polsce from the net.















And to push the stereotypes a little further…
One of my students decided to go trick-or-treating with her friends last year. I told them the Halloween trick-or-treating rules.

No costume, no candy.

No destructive tricks.
No trick-or-treating after 9 p.m.
Wear something reflective.
No paper treat bags.
 (I had an unfortunate incident as a child when the local pastor who gave out apples –and sometimes dimes- dropped an apple into my treat bag. The apple went all the way through the bag to my feet along with all my candy. The pastor said “Happy Halloween” and closed the door.)

OK, back to my student and her Halloween haul. She got some candy, one swipe with a broom, a few opportunities to do a trick, a few F**K OFFs and 50 zloty. Wow, 50 zloty!  At one house, a guy gave her a 50 and asked her to go and buy her a flaszka. Cool.

P.S….

We can only hope ;)
Happy Halloween!

Polish Halloween

No time to write.
We’re getting ready for Polish Halloween.

Sponge Bob or Violetta Villas?

We need to come up with 4 Halloween costumes….I know, Halloween is more than a month away, but when you live in a country that doesn’t celebrate Halloween, dawdling on your costumes does not pay off. And everybody knows that I LOVE HALLOWEEN!
If you didn’t know that, well,
I LOVE HALLOWEEN!
So here comes the 4th annual “Bring Halloween to the Poles”.
The kids have a closet full of costumes already. They will figure something out, but what about us? What about the adults?
There are a few directions we could go…
First, we could go the obvious old-school route – clown, mummy, witch, pumpkin. Those costumes would be understood by all.
We could also go the famous-person route – Elvis, Violetta Villas, the Pope, Doda – except the kids won’t know who we are supposed to be. And I’m not so sure my neighbors would appreciate Las Vegas Villas with a sky-high blonde baroque wig in a princess gown dragging 9 pluszowy doggies behind her on a leash accompanied by the Pope, a Disney Princess and Spider-man.


Maybe this wig for Villas?

or this one?

nope, I think this one…

And I couldn’t forget about Misiu…I wanna rock! ROCK!

Another way to go would be some kid’s characters – Sponge Bob, the little Mermaid, some superhero. Everybody can dig those costumes.

We were also thinking of some professions – doctor, nurse, police officer, something like that. Misiu, however, cannot just be a doctor or a priest. His costume has to make some social commentary. His doctor costume must be accompanied by a fist full of money. His priest costume, now after the latest scandal, would have to include a can of whipped cream.
Traditionally, Misiu likes all costume ideas as long as we put the word sexy (or naughty or even slutty) in front of the name.


Nurse? What a boring idea but Naughty Nurse? Not too bad.
Witch? How cliche, but Sexy Witch? I told Misiu that the kids wouldn’t even know what I was supposed to be. He said that was ok, the daddies would get it.

Happy Pre-Halloween!

Halloween 2011

What a difference a year makes. Halloween has taken over Poland. More parties, more candy, more decorations and did I mention more parties?  I feel so special, as if it were all just for me. Maybe I should have been Narcissus for Halloween instead of a pirate.

If you  recall,  I had mixed feelings about Halloween last year here in Poland. As I have stated many times, I do not desire to import Halloween to Poland. I just want to share my childhood holiday with my half-Polish/half-American children. Traditions give our lives meaning, don’t you think?

Last year, Lizzie’s class at pre-school was the only group to celebrate Halloween and the only reason they celebrated Halloween at all was because we taught a Halloween lesson as requested by the teacher. Our lesson was a big hit complete with a story book, and art project and even learning a few basic but essential Halloween phrases in English such as “boo”, “pumpkin” and “trick or treat”.  It was a lot of fun, but one family didn’t think so and took their child out of the classroom for this lesson.

I wonder what those parents did this year because Lizzie’s pre-school is bursting with Halloween. The whole school is decorated and they had a big, organized party on Friday. Even the “lunch ladies” dressed up. As the sign says “Hapy Halloween” everyone! 

Here is one decoration from pre-school that we particularly liked…(bravo to the teachers)…

…and here is our home version. It is an easy peasy Halloween “pillow”. You need a brown paper bag, some paint, crayons or chalk, some glue or staples and some old newspaper to stuff inside.

On the radio today they were talking about the origins of Halloween and whatnot. It seems Halloween is not so far away from Polish traditions according to the guest. They also talked about what to do if some little scary creatures show up on your doorstep this evening – trick-or-treating protocol, so to speak. Many people called in to say that they are prepared for trick-or-treaters with bowls of candy on stand-by. Other people called in to say that it is a borrowed holiday and kind of artificial to celebrate it. One guy stated that he doesn’t have anything for the kids and he will choose the trick if need be. Oh, how I was dreaming about this very guy as child. I never once encountered a house without a treat. How I dreamed about playing a trick, just once. Kids in Poland will get the chance I never had. Kids, make it a good one!

We had a party as usual and now our tradition stands 3 years long. We not only had a party at home, but we also went trick-or-treating. That is part of  the Halloween celebration that I need help with and once again for the third year in a row, our neighbors rocked. Thank you neighbors for making our day.

pre trick-or-treating party 

      I am a very scary pirate and Rosie is a very scary dinosaur

Lizzie as a very scary skeleton

another scary friend

we begin our trick-or-treating

pause for photo op

Hey Mister, where’d you go?…to the kitchen to get the candy

Misiu as a very flamboyant pirate

         refreshments for the guests – spider eggs and eyeball soup 

then all the little scary creature went to sleep and we could rest

Happy Halloween!