The Polish Christening

aka The night of THE TABLE

Phase One: The Ceremony

It was a hot Sunday afternoon.  The hottest of the year, maybe the century.  I was dressed in a long sleeve button-up shirt with a too tight skirt and pantyhose.  This is not how I normally dress in the Summer, but since we we’re going to a Christening at a Polish Catholic Church that looked very old- fashioned, I thought it best to cover every inch of my skin and I ordered Jason into slacks and a dress shirt.  I only thank God that he talked me out of making him wear a jacket, because when we arrived at the un-air conditioned Cathedral I realized we were suckers.  The Polish women wore flowing summery skirts and tank tops.  The Polish men wore khaki and short sleeves and every Polish person understood Polish.  Jason and I sat in the back with no clue as to what was going on while we stared at the silent fans that sat unused all around the church.  No one else seemed to care so much that they weren’t on- probably because they weren’t melting away in their Puritanical clothes.  The service was a little hard to follow and at one point it seemed that I was seeing double and that the Priest was blessing two babies instead of one.  I became confused and looked at Jason with my eyes wide and my brow scrunched up.  He looked the same way at me.  Finally, I decided I was hallucinating and that maybe this was indeed a very religious experience for me.  Later Jason explained that there did appear to be two separate Christenings happening simultaneously, so I brushed the whole thing off as heat stroke.

Phase Two: The Reception

We walked the mile or so to the banquet hall where we were first greeted by a table of seating cards (I didn’t expect that).  After we found our table, we were greeted by Mrs. Hawro.  The first words out of her mouth were, “Where is Patrick?”  She seemed frantic.  After we explained that my brother would not be able to attend, she invited us to get a plate to eat and informed us this was cocktail hour.  Jason and I silently assumed that for the next hour guests would eat and drink to their content and then there might be some dancing, then they would cut a cake and then we’d all go home.  So we loaded up our plates with corned beef and rice and calamari and pasta and all sorts of things and Jason got us two glasses of wine and we ate and drank and sat, politely listening to the very outgoing Polish man who was seated next to us.  He had introduced himself in Polish and when we looked at him dumbly, as we sometimes do, he laughed and said, “You are the only ones who don’t speak Polish.” As he laughed heartily and pumped our hands, we suddenly felt even more uncomfortable than before.  This is the state we were in when a waiter with ill-fitting white gloves that looked like his little brother made them out of swifter cloths came by to ask us if we’d like fish or pork for dinner.

Phase Two and a Half: The Realizations

This is the point where we realize that what we thought was a dinner buffet was really a snack table and that we were about to receive a sit down meal.  Therefore, we would probably be here a little longer than we originally expected.  No big deal except that we had already filled up on hors d’ouvres.  People started dancing, so Jason got us another glass of wine.  Then, all the dancers rushed to their tables as soup was served.  They ate their soup and started dancing again only to rush back twenty minutes later for a service of salad.  This is when we realized that this dinner was going to take much longer than we originally estimated and we began to feel a little worried.  Our worry didn’t last long as after another round of dancing, the meal was served.  Then the creepy-handed waiters came around to ask us if we’d like coffee.  This seemed like a good idea to me since I had stuffed myself so thoroughly and was beginning to feel sleepy and also because in Western traditions, coffee signifies either the beginning of the day or the end of the night.  I felt that this was an end of the night kind of cup of coffee.  I was wrong.  Apparently, in Eastern European traditions, coffee represents the exact center of an occasion.  The place where my worry used to be was starting to slowly fill again, but this time with anxiousness.  The dancing had begun again and the D.J. has come by to ask us what music we would like him to play since we were the only Americans in the room and since we were the only ones not dancing.  Funny, we couldn’t think of anything.  We began to fear that we may never leave.  I kept telling Jason that we just had to hold out for the cake and then we’d be free.  The cake finally came topped with a giant metal candle that turned out to be a cross between a Sparkler and a Roman Candle.  It seemed very dangerous for such a young baby.  Then Mr. Hawro held his small infant’s hand around the knife and helped her to “cut” the first piece.  Was I still hallucinating?  The cake finally reached our plates, topped with ice cream in the shape of a small jell-o mold.  We ate it all up although we were both sick and acidy from all the other food and drink.  “Now is the time,”  I exclaimed.  And Jason I gingerly walked to the head table to bid our adieu’s.  This is when we realized we weren’t going anywhere.  The Hawro’s insisted that we stay.  They kept saying, “You have to wait for the table.  The table.  The table.”

Okay quick recap with a few added details that Vanessa left out.  At 2:00 P.M. two non-Polish and non-Catholic hicks from Texas go to a Polish Christening. Here what happens:

1.      Cathedral.-

a.       Sit,

b.      Stand,

c.       Sort of kneel.  (I sat back in my pew but Vanessa had one knee on the kneeling pad and her ass was still on the pew.  Very Baptist in a Catholic church sort of thing to do.

d.      Mouthing the chants like we know what we are doing.

e.       Vanessa freaking out because suddenly all the women started walking down to the front of the church and Vanessa thought she was going to have to as well.  As it turns out it they were just doing communion and I guess the men hadn’t been to confession in awhile.

2.      Walk to reception.

a.       Buy a Christening card along the way.  This turned into quite an ordeal.  You might think that finding a Christening card may be difficult but quite the contrary.  There were many cards just no clean cards.  They all looked like there were manhandled by field hands.  We grabbed the cleanest one and went on our way.

b.      Walked into the reception place praying we weren’t the first ones.

3.      The reception

a.       Cocktail hour

b.      Dancing

c.       Soup

d.      Dancing

e.       Salad

f.        Dancing  (See a pattern)

g.       Main course

h.       Dancing

i.         Cake and Coffee

j.        Dancing  (We walk over to the Hawro’s and tell them we are leaving.  “Oh no you cannot leave until the table.”  We tried to talk our way out of it but with no luck.

k.      THE TABLE (7:00 P.M.)

This is where I will continue with the story.  Reluctantly we walked back over to our table and sat down waiting for “The Table”.  While waiting we watched a strange Polish-American phenomena of circle dancing.  It was very Footloose in which everyone stood in a circle while on person or couple would get in the middle and dance.  I know you are thinking, yeah I have seen that in movies where people get in a circle and do some kind of traditional dance with a fiddle playing and people stomping.  Now imagine if Kraftwerk did the sound track for Saturday Night Fever - that is what we saw. 

Across from us was a couple about our age that I am sure the Hawro’s sat them near us thinking we would hit it off.  That of course didn’t happen and somehow they managed to slip away before The Table arrived.  We waited while Vanessa’s new talkative Polish friend went on an on about something, we hid while a Congo line made it’s way through the room hoping they wouldn’t find us and we shook each other to keep ourselves from falling asleep from all the food and drink.  Finally I noticed activity near the back of the room as service people began to wheel a table onto the dance floor.  We were so relieved that we might be able to finally get to leave until we saw the contents of the table.  It was completely filled with shot glasses and many sorts of after dinner drinks and aperitifs.  Our fatigue quickly turned to fear as we had visions of many liquors being poured down our throat.  Then more tables started coming out.  Four total.  The left end had a flower arrangement and the shots and the right also had a flower arrangement along with trays of deserts.  In the middle was an ice sculpture and a chef with two stoves burning.  Everybody started walking up towards the table while the DJ started saying something in Polish.  Then suddenly the flower arrangements on each corner of the table burst into flames, at least that’s what I thought, but turned out to be another fireworks display similar to the Christening cake from earlier in the day.  As the Spectacular Spectacular began to fizzle two balls of fire shot out from the chef’s pans as he began to prepare a flaming desert.  Everyone got in line and the third feast began.  We sat down and forced ourselves to eat even more food.  As the dancing began to start up again Vanessa and I quietly slipped away and waddled home.

June 2002