Dyngus Day or Easter Monday, is a Slavic holiday that signifies the end of the Lenten season. It is celebrated on Monday following Easter Sunday.

This year’s Dyngus Day celebration in Buffalo was bigger than ever. The festivities were complete with polka dancing, a parade, feasting, and squirt-gun flirting. Polish kitchens were busy preparing food for the celebration, as Polish food is the fuel for the celebration.

Dyngus Day celebrations first started out on a smaller scale in the Polish Neighborhoods of Buffalo’s East Side. Lotti Pikuzinski, owner of the R&L Lounge at Mills street said that the celebration “brings families together” and allows citizens to “not forget their Polish culture.”

Each year, the R&L Lounge serves plates of “lazy pierogi” noodles with onion and sauerkraut to Polish-Americans and their friends.

Rev. Czeslaw Krysa, rector of the St. Casimir Catholic Church, said that “Buffalo’s approach to Dyngus Day is wondrous.” Krysa’s church is located on Cable Street, which is considered the second-most concentrated Polish neighborhood in the entire region.

Dyngus Day was also celebrated in New Orleans, the location of the Slavic restaurant called Kukhanya. The restaurant comes alive, as it is the hub for Dyngus Day celebrations in the area. The restaurant offers delectable Polish dishes, such as kielbasa, Polish meatballs, bigos, and Polish pretzel dogs.

Aside from celebrating with food, citizens also pull pranks on each other. Men pour buckets of  water over the heads of young ladies. However, ladies need not fret. According to tradition, the women can get their revenge the day after Dyngus Day by throwing dishes at the men.

Although some Polish neighborhoods in the United States have abandoned Dyngus Day celebrations, the tradition is still very much alive in Buffalo and New Orleans where Polish families look forward to the Easter Monday festivities year after year.

Dyngus Day 2014 Celebration

Image via YouTube