Cavalcade of the Magi

January 6th is the famous Twelfth Night, Twelfth Day of Christmas, and is traditionally celebrated as the day in which the Magi, or Three Kings, finally arrived at the manger.

In Poland, January 6th has been a public holiday since 2011, and much like on Christmas day, all the stores, banks, shops and offices are closed. In 2009, the first large-scale cavalcade (a public parade of the Three Kings and their symbolic courts) took place in Warsaw. With several hundred participants and tens of thousands of spectators, it's one of the biggest nativity plays in Europe.

Last year, it was freezing cold, but ten thousand people still showed up.
This year, there were more than three times as many!

And indeed, the whole thing is a large, open-air play. This year, more than 24 cities took part in the cavalcade, or as we call it in Polish, the Orszak Trzech Króli.

Pronounced Oar-shack Tscheh Crooley ;)

The public is encouraged to play along; paper crowns and song books are distributed to the crowd by volunteers.

Everyone gets a crown.

 The Kings Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar ride through town, in a chariot, on a horse and on a camel, respectively.

Right to left: Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar.

Their courts are color-coded: children in red capes and silver helmets for Caspar, who represents the continent of Europe, green capes and rice hats for Melchior who represents Asia, and blue capes and headscarves for Balthasar and Africa. The courts gather by Sigismund's Column in the Old Town Square in Warsaw at noon for the Angelus prayer, then set out to walk to Piłsudski Square where a family acts in a live creche.

But before they and the thousands of ordinary people following them can take their crowns off to pay respect to Jesus (who in Christian tradition is the King of Kings), they must face several obstacles.

Never fear: they are guided by the Star of Bethlehem.

This type of spinning star is traditionally used by carolers.

 Behind it come hosts of angels, traditionally played by blind and disabled children, and proper shepherds from the Southern mountains singing carols.

Among them walk the Cardinal Archbishop and clergy, mountain lifeguards, a choir, then at last the hosts of the kings.

The absolutely ADORABLE hosts of the kings.

But on their way to Betlehem, they will be sorely tempted, for they must pass through the Republic of Pleasure, where the minions of Hell will offer them fantastic, lucrative deals in exchange for their souls.

Hell's attorneys and business representatives, heckling passers-by to sign contracts for their souls.

Then, they will witness the battle of Good and Evil. On a pedestal, a choir of angels sings out virtues, while below, cloaked in clouds of sulphur, a band of devils screeches out sins.

Suspended in uncertainty between them is a man, who climbs up and down a ladder, struggling with his vices and ambitions, unable yet to ascend to Heaven, unwilling still to descend to Hell.

Poor fellow got a lot of exercise that day.

Betlehem draws near, but now the courts pass through the kingdom of Herod, who watches from his window and calls out: Where are you going? To see the newborn King?

Impostor!!!!

I am the only King, he claims, and demands to be told where the baby Jesus is, so that he may kill the usurper.

We know, of course, that the baby is in the manger, where the parade culminates with the giving of the gifts, and a blessing. Carols are sung out loud throughout the event, the public taking over in the gaps between mobile speakers.

That donkey was singing quite a lot, too.

And that's how it was this year. Additional attractions were the performances of several young childrens' choirs, a choreographed banner dance, and a beautiful Chinese-style dragon at the head of the Asian group.

Balthasar's camels, of course, were a highlight, as was the African-born King himself. Poland is a very pale-skinned country; though it is not exactly uncommon to see black people anymore, their presence in media, politics and other public events still causes interest. When you see someone who is not white in Poland, your first thought is 'a foreigner'; but the country is more diverse than many realise. King Balthasar, or rather mr. Martin Bol Deng Aleu, a native Sudanese forced to flee his country on account of his Christian faith, is a Polish citizen, and has been living here since 1996.

It looks like the Cavalcade of the Magi, new as it is to Poland, has already become a proper tradition. Check it out next year!

And here's a pro tip- if you're watching in Warsaw, and can't get a good view on account of the crowd, go up to the viewing terrace on top of St. Anna's church tower. That's how I took the first photo in this post.




Meta information


Orszak Trzech Króli website (Polish only)
http://orszak.org/


Wikipedia Entry on the Epiphany (Three Kings' Day)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(holiday)

An Automaton Nativity Scene

After a hearty Christmas meal (or three days later, depending on how well your stomach handles the twelve obligatory courses) it's time to take a walk.  If you're in Warsaw, head to the Old Town, where, even on a snowless winter, everything looks magical and festive. As I already mentioned, one of the traditions is to visit the many churches in that historical part of town in order to see the various Nativity scenes.

But if you only visit one, it should be the automaton Nativity at the Capuchin Church on Miodowa Street.

The Nativity in its full glory. Upper right: the Holy Family, left: the Pope and Vatican. Far right: Old Town Warsaw.

The Capuchins are a jolly bunch, being part of the Order of Friars Minor- Franciscans, those most humble of monks. And quite creative, too. It was St. Francis who invented the creche, or nativity scene, and Capuchins all over the world follow well in his tradition every Christmas.

But the nativity on Miodowa street is quite special. In 1948, so very shortly after the War that left Warsaw in ruins, brothers Pius Janowski and Konrad Wyczawski began to build their famous mechanical Nativity. The baroque church itself was not yet fully rebuilt. Originally constructed in 1683 by King Jan III Sobieski expressly for the newly-introduced Capuchins, it had been burned not once but twice during that war, once in 1939, and once in 1944.

In fact, Old Town Warsaw as it is depicted in the Nativity stands rebuilt, proud and colourful, but at the forefront are ruins, with a soldier in the broken window, aiming his rifle, and in the street, the figure of a young scout insurgent, his helmet too large for his brow, holding a sealed message- or perhaps a grenade.

Although the mechanism, once set in motion by hand, now runs on electricity and has recently been fitted with low-energy LED lighting, all of the original characters and decor have been preserved. A sneaky look behind the scenes reveals a complicated system of tracks, wheels, pulleys and levers which make the horses prance and the musicians play.

Each character is double-sided, as it moves along a looped track that winds all through the set, and so must be presentable from all angles. A closer look dates the automatons well- the painted clothes are a memory of the fourties, the horse-drawn wagon a reminder of how, not so long ago, even a short journey could be as harsh as a pilgrimage.

But not far behind rides the founder of the church, King Jan Sobieski, followed by two winged hussars- the legendary romantic ideal of Polish cavalry.

Although my favourites were always the camels.

This Nativity has a definite patriotic theme, with a parade of characters important to Polish history peeking out from behind the buildings. They change and vary from year to year. Last Christmas, just  after we lost ninety six of our countrymen, including the Presidential Pair, in a plane crash, the monks placed a model of the destroyed airplane in the foreground.

The Nativity can be viewed every day from 10 am til 6 pm, from Christmas Day until February 2nd. Admission is free, but there is a collection box and gift shop. The proceeds go, of course, to the upkeep and renovation of the Nativity.

Below is a short video of the mechanism in motion. :)

Meta information:

Wikipedia entry on Capuchin church in Warsaw (Polish only)

http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ko%C5%9Bci%C3%B3%C5%82_Przemienienia_Pa%C5%84skiego_w_Warszawie

Wikipedia entry on the Order of Friars Minor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Friars_Minor_Capuchin

How to make a real Christmas borscht: part 2

You thought I'd left you hanging with that borscht, huh? All those beets, getting pretty smelly in their jars...

Click here to see Part One of the recipe, which should have left you with jars full of beets.

Remember, the longer the wait, the more acidic the soup. These jars have been sitting here since December 7th.

And the truth is, when you open these jars, you will get a nasty surprise.

Aaaaaaargh!

Mold! Nasty, horrible, green mold! Oh god and skies alive, what went wrong?

Nothing. This is exactly what was supposed to happen. Fermented beet juice. Trust me, I've eaten borscht acidified with sourdough bread all my life and I'm fine. 38 million people living in Poland are fine. And awesome. Beet borscht makes you awesome.

But, of course, we don't want to be eating the mold. Blech. Scoop it out. Yuck yuck yuck. That's your bread, and what's left of the garlic. Into the bin it goes. Forget you ever saw it.

Yuck.

Next, to make perfectly sure no nasty stuff remains in our soup, place a sheet of gauze over a thick sieve and pour the beet-water through.

Clean gauze, of course.

Wear an apron. Beet splashes are hard to wash out.

The gauze and the sieve will catch all the bad bits, leaving you with a pot full of gorgeous, red liquid.

Clean, gorgeous, magical.

This is not yet borscht.

A step I have permitted myself to skip, because I assume everyone knows the basics, is making a large pot of broth. For Christmas Eve, it should be vegetable (no meat allowed) but on any other day you can use chicken, beef, or whatever your pleasure is.

Just in case you forgot how to do it, here's a quick reminder: chop up some vegetables (absolute standard are carrots, leek, parsnip, celery root, onion) and dump them in a pot of water. You can add some butter, too.

Simmer until vegetables are soft and soup is tasty.

Take vegetables out. You have broth.

Now, take that amazing red beet water and pour it into the broth.

You can throw away the beets that were in the jars, by the way, they're useless to us now. However, you should take two or three fresh, raw beets, peel, and chop them.

Add them to the broth, too. They won't do much for the taste at this point, but they will continue bringing out the colour.

Now, this is important- let the lot simmer, but never boil. If it boils, it will lose that gorgeous colour. Keep an eye on it and let it cook slowly on a small flame until the fresh beets sink down to the bottom of the pot.

Taste it. It should be strong, acidic, strangely exciting. If for some reason it fails to arouse your tastebuds, season it to your liking. And voila. Your borscht is ready.

Remember to serve it with boiled mushroom uszka!

Polish Christmas Necessities

Is a Polish Christmas really all that different from an American or British one?

Well, yes. Yes it is. Mainly, Poles celebrate Christmas Eve more festively than Christmas Day.

Here are a few things worth knowing about Christmas in Poland.


The first star


Christmas Eve is a day of fasting. You're not supposed to eat anything until the big evening meal, which begins once the sun has set and the first star has appeared in the sky. This is a good way to keep kids busy as lookouts...

Especially in the city, one must look out for the star.  An illustration of mine for "The Star of Betlehem"

Christmas is also often referred to as 'Gwiazdka', or 'the little star'. This is a pretty name which everyone has adopted in good spirit, but its origins actually lie in the ploys of our socialist government of 1952-1989 to secularise the seasonal celebrations. The Polish term for 'Christmas' is 'Boże Narodzenie', quite literally, The Birth of God.


Opłatek

 Before the meal, the family gathers around to share opłatek. Opłatek (pronounced op-wah-tekk) named from the latin word 'oblatum' meaning 'offering'. It is just like communion wafer, except rectangular, embossed with Nativity imagery, has not been consecrated and thus is not sacramentally the body of Christ. It is typically made by nuns, and always blessed by a priest. Charities and churches distribute it in exchange for a donation.

It works like this: you take a piece of opłatek, then go around the room, hugging and kissing each guest in turn. He or she will take a small piece from your opłatek, and you must take a piece from theirs. Then, you exchange best wishes for this Christmas and the upcoming New Year.

Opłatek

Opłatek is an extremely important tradition in Polish culture, extending even beyond Christian households as a way of acknowledging each of our close ones individually, if only that for that one brief moment every year. If you don't have any handy, break some bread together, for as the saying goes, enemies will not sit down to a meal together. Therefore, anyone you share bread with is your friend.



The Christmas Eve table

There is a very particular set of rules regarding the setting of a Christmas table. Hay must be placed under or on the tablecloth, as a reminder of the manger that Jesus was born in.

Hay on the table, a baby Jesus figurine dating back to my childhood, and, of course, one extra place setting.

There must also be one extra place setting, no matter how crowded the dining room. This place setting is meant for the Weary Traveler, whomever he may be- whether a lost soul, a loved one who could not make it home that year, or Jesus himself. In theory, anyone who seeks shelter and company on that night should be invited to share the Christmas meal with the family. In practice...well, some people are more welcoming than others.



The animals

Twelve dishes take a long time to consume, so once the meal is over, there is a small window of time in which people usually sing carols and exchange gifts. Children have another reason to be excited- legend says that at midnight on Christmas Eve, animals speak in human languages. One should be cautious, though. Many is the story of the landlord who crept into the barn to listen to his horses and cattle speak, and overheard them talking about his own death. Though they are not mentioned in the Bible, common faith has it that the ox and the donkey were the first and last at Jesus's birth- they often know more than we do.

My parents' dog, Guinness, probably has a lot to say.

The Shepherd's Mass

But alas, few people hear the beasts speak, for midnight is the hour when Shepherds' Mass begins. Bellies full and mouths yawning, people flock to the churches to witness Christmas Eve turning to Christmas Day. It is during that mass that they will first see the nativity scenes unveiled, with the baby Jesus in place.

Each church must have a nativity scene, and while some parishes are content with the traditional figures...

 ...many go out of their way to create an original and sometimes philosophical setting for the baby Jesus' arrival.

The Word became Body, and lived among us- the baby Jesus lies cradled in an open book at the Artists' Church.

An unforgettable icon in Polish history, and symbol of the Church's involvment in the defeat of communism was a nativity scene where the baby Jesus was placed inside the trunk of a car. This was a reaction to the brutal murder of a Solidarity activist priest, Jerzy Popiełuszko. The Secret Service beat him to death, stuffed the body into a trunk and then dumped it in the Vistula river in October 1984. The film 'To Kill a Priest', starring Christopher Lambert, tells a fictionalised version of this story.

Photo used with kind permission of the author, Mark Carrot . The car used for the nativity was of the same make
and colour as the car in which Father Popiełuszko's body was transported.

I was only one year old when this happened, but for many years after that, crowds would gather at Popiełuszko's old church to light candles on the anniversary. My parents would take me with them, and I remember people crying.

After Midnight Mass, the family comes home. They may sleep in the next day, but Christmas Day, or as Poles like to call it, The First Day of Christmas, is usually celebrated by visiting relatives to sample leftovers from the previous night's feast. It is also the first time meat products may be eaten during the holiday, which many people look forward to. Those who did not attend Midnight Mass may spend Christmas Day strolling from church to church, taking part in Mass and visiting the nativities.



Caroling

Carols, in Polish tradition, are not sung before Christmas, but instead all through the month of January. Think about it- carolers are not the ones who announce that Jesus will be born, but those who are passing on the joyous news that he has arrived!

We differentiate, as in English, between Carol and Christmas Song. The first is 'Kolęda', pronounced koh-len-da, from the latin calendae which signifies the first day of the month- January, in this case, when carols were sung. The second is 'Pastorałka', pronounced pass-toh-rahw-kah, from the Polish word 'pasterz' meaning shepherd. So, shepherd's song.

A kolęda will strictly tell the religious story; a pastorałka contains secular elements, and will never be sung at church during service.

Here is one of the most beautiful Polish Carols, set to a polonaise tune and written in 1792. Its text is based on a juxtaposition of opposites, and often called the Great Oxymoron. The song's title is often translated as 'God is born', but the actual tense of the verb implies that God is being born. The miracle of the birth is supposedly occurring during the song.

God is born, the might trembles

The Lord of the Heavens lies naked

The fire stills, the light darkens

The infinite one has limits.

Disdained, covered in glory

Mortal everlasting King

And the Word became the Body

and lived among us.

Bolding mine to emphasise the paradoxical contrasts, which I included in this literal translation but which are often omitted from the lyrical English version. The performance is by the world famous folk dance and song ensemble, Mazowsze.

In many regions, carolers will dress up as an array of characters symbolising various aspects of daily life and the Christmas story- traditionally the group might contain shepherds, kings, King Herod, an Orthodox Jew, angels, Death, various animals, a goat-like monster called the Turoń, and of course, the Star of Betlehem, carried propped up on a stick and often spinning like a pinwheel. Nowadays, especially in cities, it's rare to see such carolers.

A group of carolers. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Fiberek.

So, it's the day before Christmas Eve.
I had planned to make a detailed tutorial on celebrating a Polish-style Christmas for you this year. Unfortunately I fell a little bit short! As it turned out, preparing such a celebration and documenting it at the same time is practically impossible.

We didn't cover all the recipes. We didn't talk about so many things that should have been mentioned!

That's okay. Christmas does come around every year, and I hope you'll join me for the next one. And don't forget, there are twelve days of holiday ahead of us.

Besides, today, I still need to write about how to finish your barszcz... you're probably really worried about it by now!




Meta Information


Photograph of the Popiełuszko nativity used with kind permission of the author, mr Mark Carrot. Thank you!
http://homepage.mac.com/zbigniew/
It can be seen here among other photographs of the mourning of father Jerzy Popiełuszko:
http://homepage.mac.com/zbigniew/past_present/popieluszko/farewell_jerzy.html
Photo of Carolers from Wikimedia Commons
http://pl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plik:Kol%C4%99dnicy_2008.JPG&filetimestamp=20100112185645
Wikipedia entry on 'God is Born' carol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%B3g_si%C4%99_rodzi
Wikipedia entry on opłatek
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_wafer

A bit of straw for your tree

Wow, who'd have thought that trying to prepare for Christmas and write about it at the same time would require bending time and space?

But amidst all the madness, I managed to find a very special treat for you. My neighbour and friend, Mariza, whose family has a long-standing romance with folklore and art, agreed to help me film a quick  little tutorial on how to make two traditional straw decorations.

You all probably have your Christmas trees already set up. I noticed that my American friends, for instance, put them up as early as December 1st...and get rid of them just before New Year!

This is a bit backwards, and not even according to Polish tradition- after all, those famed twelve days of Christmas start on December 25th. So there is no shame in still having your tree up in January! In Poland, that's normal, and what's more, the trees aren't usually brought into the house until a day or two before Christmas Eve.

This is why I like snow- it makes bringing the tree home easier.

But if you have a little time left over before the celebrations (I know I don't!) and maybe a bare patch on your tree, why not try this.

Straw and paper sculptures are a typical decoration across Polish folklore. One of the best-known forms is the elaborate 'pająk' (pronounced pah-yonk) or, literally, spider, an intricate construction meant to resemble the crystal chandeliers of upper-class houses.

A traditional 'pająk' on display at the folk museum in Łęczyca

They were made using straw, dried peas, beans, feathers, clay, and from the 19th century onwards, coloured paper and wrappers.

Don't panic- we won't be making anything as crazy as what you see in that picture. But what Mariza demonstrates in the videos below are actually basic elements which can be put together to make a larger construction. 

You'll see how to make a simple chain for your tree:

And then a single 'spider', with crepe paper flowers:

You will need:

some straw, which you should soak for a few minutes, so that it doesn't snap and break when you cut it.
Mariza often uses sheep shears, but your household scissors will do just fine. ;) You can keep the straw in the water as you work.

Don't bother with a ruler, for each individual decoration, use the first straw you cut as a guide.

These are all the straws you need to make one element of the pająk.

You will use crepe paper to make the flowers...

...and you'll put the whole thing together using a needle, some yarn or thick thread, and a long, thin wire with a flat hook at the end with which you will pull the yarn through the straw.

You can easily make that yourself.

Ready? Here are the videos.

Meta information:

Music in videos are CC-licensed instrumental versions of Polish Christmas carols by Paio


Thanks to Mariza Nawrocka-Teodorczyk for her help :)