New Year's Celebration: Polish Style

New Year’s in Poland is known as Sylwester or St Silvester's Day, where people go into the forest for a cookout and hold on to lucky fish scales. They have many different traditions for the New Year. To start off the day, they take a hayride into the forest where there is a bonfire that they cook food over. This includes cooking sausages, bigos (a meat and vegetable stew with sauerkraut and shredded fresh cabbage), and drinking wodka (Expensive polish vodka). Bakers sell all kinds of bread and rolls in different shapes like rabbits, sheep, geese, and cows. These shapes are to ensure wealth and good luck for the new year. Another tradition is lighting off fireworks. These fireworks are so big that they can be seen throughout multiple cities around Poland. They are set off at midnight on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. As they are being set off, people toast drinks to bring in the new year and say goodbye to the old one. This night and day are traditionally spent with friends and family. The Polish also have a few good luck traditions, such as having a fish scale in their wallet. Carp is the main dish on many Polish Christmas tables. It is also known to bring good luck in the form of more money into your wallet. If people are smart enough, they will save one of the scales from the fish at Christmas. They will keep it in their wallet as a money magnet starting on New Year’s Eve, hoping it will bring them money throughout the year. Before dinner, on New Year’s Eve, people will wash their entire body in ice-cold water from a small dish. At the bottom of the dish, there is a silver coin that should be untouched. This they hope will make them rich in the new year. Having a clean and organized house before the new year is also important to Poles. They will clean out their whole house before the new year. Part of this is emptying their cupboards. This is known as a sign of poverty to the Polish but they believe that having empty cupboards will leave a new space for a new year.

Editor's Note: the information for this article came from “How eastern europeans celebrate New Year’s” on thespruceeats.com,“Polish new years traditions” from Newyearwiki.com and “5 things Polish people do on New Year’s Eve” from Careersinpoland.com