Easter is the oldest and the most important Christian holidays. We celebrate it on the first Sunday after the full moon in spring.

Ash Wednesday is the day we start the period of forty-day Lent. This day all the faithful go to church for the mass during which a priest scatter our heads with ash from burned palm twigs as a sign of conversion and penance.

Easter time in Poland starts on Ash Wednesday, when pussy willows called bazie or kotki are cut and put in the water. These twigs are later used as palms on Palm Sunday. Some people also take other spring flowers or buy beautiful palms and go with them to church. After the priest blesses the palms, we take them back home and leave them there until the next year.

Before Easter we do a lot of cleaning in our flats to make them clean and (in the symbolic sense) to sweep away from the flat winter as well as evil and all diseases. Waiting for Easter we start with Lent, which is to prepare us through  Way of the Cross to Mystery of Resurrection. For Christians it is  the main holiday.

During the Holy Week we clean our houses, collect eggs, send Easter cards to our families and go to churches. Finally, on Holy Saturday we make pisanki – we paint eggs and draw different patterns or we glue colourful papers on them to make them beautiful.

Later we prepare Easter baskets. It is a very popular tradition in Poland. We decorate them with some green plants and colourful ribbons, then we put some traditional food into it like eggs, ham, sausages, salt, horseradish, bread, Easter cake and, of course, pisanki and lamb. The lamb is usually made from butter or sugar. Every piece of the food has its symbolic meaning.

When we have all the things in the basket, we go to church. The food is blessed and taken home, but we can’t eat it till the next day.