Easter Monday: White House hosts egg roll, Buffalo hosts Dyngus Day

April 06, 2015 by Leave a Comment

MONDAY, APRIL 6: Roll those leftover Easter eggs and bring the leftovers from your holiday dinner out of the ‘fridge, because Easter Monday is a holiday in several countries of the world. The second day of the octave of Easter Week, Easter Monday condenses what used to be an entire week of celebrations into a single day.

Activities are abundant on Easter Monday: At the White House in Washington, D.C., the First Family hosts the annual Easter Egg Roll; in Australia, Easter Monday is a public holiday and Sydney hosts a famous parade; in the UK, a plethora of events—such as the Cadbury Easter Egg Trail—are offered; and in Poland and New York, Dyngus Day festivities charge up old-fashioned customs. In the Republic of Ireland, citizens remember the men and women who died in the Easter Rising, which began on Easter Monday of 1916.

137TH WHITE HOUSE EASTER EGG ROLL

This year, the Obama family will host the 137th annual White House Easter Egg Roll, with the theme “Gimme Five,” in honor of the fifth anniversary of the First Lady’s Let’s Move! initiative. Upward of 35,000 guests will participate in the egg roll and egg hunt, sport and fitness zones, storytelling and cooking demos. (View the official 2015 Obama family Easter photo, here.) The 2015 White House Keepsake Eggs will feature, along with the stamped signatures of the President and First Lady, the “paw prints” of Bo and Sunny. In addition, this year, Live with Kelly and Michael will present its first full, live broadcast from the White House, airing live from the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden outside the East Wing of the White House.

DYNGUS DAY:
A BELOVED POLISH TRADITION

In Poland, Central Europe and in Polish communities worldwide, customs related to Dyngus Day are more popular than ever. From the Polish Smigus-Dyngus (Wet Monday), Easter Monday has long been reserved for dousing girls with water and swatting them with pussy willows; the following day, girls have their revenge on the boys. (Wikipedia has details.) The world’s largest organized Dyngus Day celebration takes place each year in Buffalo, New York, where attendees dress in red and white—the colors of the Polish flag—and watch the famous parade. (Check out the official site.) This year, tens of thousands are expected in Buffalo to dance to the music of polka bands, eat Polish food and toast one another in Polish-owned bars. Activities also flourish in Chicago, Cleveland, Hamtramck, Michigan and South Bend, Indiana.

EASTER MONDAY: Eggs roll, horses race, ships sail, polka bands play … and water flies for ‘Dyngus Day’

March 30, 2013 by Leave a Comment

MONDAY, APRIL 1: It’s Easter Monday—and that’s no April Fool!

Western Christians the world over rest from their joyous Easter festivities, joining in the centuries-old tradition of Easter Monday. What used to be a week-long, post-Easter celebration was cut down to one day of secular activities in the 19th century; activities like egg rolling, picnics and pussy willow swatting remain popular activities. (Wikipedia has details.) In Roman Catholic countries, it’s common for the faithful to douse one another with the excess holy water blessed at Easter Sunday Mass.

EASTER MONDAY GLOBALLY: AUSTRALIA

What does Easter Monday look like around the world? In Australia, masses head outdoors for the Oakbank Easter Racing Festival. The Oakbank organization proudly boasts: “Oakbank … rivals the Melbourne Cup in size and colour and it’s 70,000 strong crowd annually on Easter Monday makes it the biggest Picnic Race Meeting on Earth.” This is a horse racing event—in fact, it’s one of Australia’s signature thoroughbred racing events, stretching back to the 1800s. Thousands love to crowd around the course to watch the highly demanding Great Eastern Steeplechase at a distance of 4950 meters, a lengthy course by world standards. The most famous jump is the meter-high fallen log. All other jumps are topped with brush fences.

Outdoor sporting festivals are hugely popular in Australia around the Easter weekend. The Australian Three Peaks Race is another massive event, which runs for several days. In fact, the stragglers in the grueling event won’t finish until Tuesday. But, the official crescendo of the race weekend, each year, is on Monday. The Three Peaks Race is a unique mash up of sailing and endurance running. Here is the schedule page. Day-by-day race updates are posted on this page. The sailing course is mapped out on this page.

That’s just a sampling of one nation’s major Easter Monday events! Many other countries make this a special day. Germans hold Easter egg races in open fields; Canadians enjoy a public holiday; and, in Guyana, kites made on Holy Saturday are flown high in the sky.

In contrast, Americans are shortchanging themselves on this particular bash. Of course, that’s not true in every community, especially if you’re part of …

DYNGUS DAY

Shouts of “Everybody’s Polish on Dyngus Day!” ring out through Buffalo, New York, today, as tens of thousands gather for the city’s renowned Dyngus Day events. Buffalo’s Dyngus Day—the world’s largest organized event of its kind—reigns as the largest polka festival in North America, having attracted more than 25 polka bands from across the country last year. Dyngus Day has been traditionally celebrated in the Polish neighborhoods of Buffalo since the late 1800s.

And for our Polish readers, we can say: “Od ponad 120 lat, obchody Lanego Poniedzialku w Stanach Zjednoczonych rozwijaly sie z ludowej polskiej tradycji w niepowtarzalne Polsko-Amerykanskie obchody. Wiekszosc polskich tradycji ludowych obchodzonych w Stanach Zjednoczonych jest oparta na obyczaju pochodzacym z okresu Wielkiej Emigracji Polakow w latach 1880-1920.”

The official website for Buffalo’s festival has been down, occasionally, this season. You can try it at www.dyngusdaybuffalo.com or check out the Dyngus Day Facebook page.

WANT A TASTE OF POLISH CULTURE? Cook up pierogis and chrusciki and everything in between, with suggestions from AllRecipes and Food Network.

WHITE HOUSE EASTER EGG ROLL GETS A DOSE OF HEALTH

The Obamas host the 135th annual White House Easter Egg Roll today, gathering more than 35,000 children and their parents to the lawns of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. for festive games, “Eggtivities” and, of course, the traditional egg roll. Together with celebrity athletes, the Obamas will promote health and the First Lady’s “Let’s Move!” initiative during this year’s event, with cooking demonstrations, health advice and even a Yoga Garden, complete with professional instructors. (Read more in the Washington Examiner.)