Polish fortune-telling holiday: Get a candle, a key and a right shoe

by Jamie Rhein on

Tonight is St. Andrew’s Eve where fortunes are told if you happen to be in Poland or around a large Polish community. These days, the fortunes are male or female friendly, but in the past were female fare. Also called Andrzejki, this holiday is thanks to St. Andrew (as in one of the disciples) who is the patron saint.

The night of fortune-telling designed to predict a person’s fate in love, wealth and marriage involves a bit of practice it seems–and a vivid imagination. The love and wealth prediction is the trickiest. People gather at parties where each tells the others’ fortunes based on information gathered from melted wax and shadows.

Here’s what you do:

  1. Get a candle. Melt the wax
  2. Turn off the lights
  3. Pour the melted wax through the hole of a key into a bowl of water. Naturally, get a key with a large hole.
  4. When the wax hardens into a shape, look at it, or the shadow that it makes to see what that person’s fortune is.

This is what you can tell if you are an intuitive fortune-teller type. The person’s country of origin (if the person speaks Polish and if you are in Poland, this might be a safe bet), the person’s future love match, and what the person’s profession will be.

If this sounds a little dicey and complicated, try shoe throwing. It’s another St. Andrew’s Eve tradition. Here’s how you do this one. Everybody at the party takes off his or her right shoe. Stand in a line across a room from a door. Throw the shoe towards the door. Whoever gets his or her shoe closer to the door will get married first. I would say if you don’t really want to get married first, don’t lob it. A gentle toss will suffice. You can always say, “Ooops, it slipped.”

Here’s another way to play this one. Starting at the wall across from the door, one person puts the heel of her shoe against the wall. Another person puts the heal of her shoe against the toe of the other person’s shoe. Another person repeats the step with her shoe. Whichever shoe is the one that reaches the door is the one that the owner will get married first. Clear as mud?

I looked around to see if I can find a particular St. Andrew’s Eve event for you to go to. Nope. I did find several articles talking about it. Here’s one from the Warsaw Voice where I culled my how tos. You can practice your Polish with this one. The cities in the U.S. and Canada mentioned as having large Polish communities are Detroit, San Francisco, Toronto and New York. This article describes even more fortune-telling games.

Danish holiday tradition: A walk through the woods and a drink of gløgg

by Jamie Rhein on

Tonight we’re going to a watch a Christmas parade in Gahanna, a town close to Columbus, with friends. My son has already hauled a fake tree out of the basement, the one I had planned to take to Florida last year until we flew instead of drove. I kept telling him, “No, it’s too early to set it up,” but then thought, he’s only five once. The tree, decorated by him, all ornaments (less than a dozen) dangling from branches on one side of the tree only, is in his room.

This has me thinking about Christmas a little early. It’s not the shopping that gets me feeling warm. It’s the traditions that bring communities together. One of the best community Christmas events I ever participated in was in Denmark. When I was a student through DIS (The Danish International Student organization through Copenhagan University) I lived with a family in Allerod, Denmark, a large town about a 30-minute train ride from Copenhagan.

Allerod started it’s Christmas season off with a communal walk through the woods followed by caroling and a town square tree lighting. I had just turned 20, my brain an instant catalog for filing experiences into how this is like the U.S. and how this is not like the U.S. This experience was filed in the “not like” and a “little like” categories–the closest thing to it is perhaps a small town parade.

What struck me was how many people were involved with walking through the woods. Men, women, children of all ages–everyone was out following the path that led to a huge black kettle (there may have been two) filled with gløgg (glug) the traditional Scandinavian hot beverage made with red wine, brandy and spices. It’s yummy and warm, particularly on a wintry night. The other kettle had the non-alcoholic version. (I may have made up this second kettle. The years that have passed since then has placed this kettle in my memory.) The walk ended up back in town where people proceeded to a nursing home to carol and then on to the town square for more caroling and the tree light up.

This particular evening left me feeling cozy, warm and safe–like these winter holidays are supposed to make people feel. It was such a simple, event. Not splashy or commercial–just townspeople getting together to enjoy each others company. And, they were very welcoming and wonderful to the young American woman in their midst.

What about you? Any holiday traditions you’ve enjoyed while traveling?