It’s Time For a Dyngus Day Celebration in Connecticut

For the past few years, Mrs. Large and I have floated the idea of driving out to Buffalo, New York to take part in the spectacle known as 'Dyngus Day' in-person. Unfortunately, we're not going again this year. Instead, I ask you, fellow Polish-American Heritage residents of Connecticut, can we get an organized Dyngus Day celebration here?

Get our free mobile app

Have you heard of Dyngus Day? It's wild. According to tradition, boys get to douse girls with water, and spank them on the legs with pussy willow branches. Seriously, that is, unless the girl presents a painted egg to her soaker. Don't worry, the girls are supposed to get their revenge on Tuesday, as the tables are turned. In reality, Dyngus Day just turns into a good-natured water fight between boys and girls. Here's a video I found online from Euronews of the Dyngus Day celebrations in Poland, where it looks like it can get pretty aggressive.

Smigus Dyngus(Wet Monday/Dyngus Day) is a Roman Catholic celebration held on Easter Monday across Poland, and in Central, and Eastern Europe. In American, there are big Dyngus Day celebrations and parades held in Cleveland, Pasadena, South Bend, and Buffalo. The origins of which are uncertain, but they may date as far back as the 1500's. What's it all about? Again, it's uncertain, but may involve the dousing of water as sort of a baptism, and as far as the pussy willow branches, those have evolved from the earlier use of palm fronds.

We have a huge Polish-American community here in Connecticut, most notably in New Britain, Enfield, and the Naugatuck Valley, but there are no organized Dyngus Day events as far as I can tell this year. There have been in the past in New Britain's Little Poland neighborhood and other communities, but not this year. How about it Danbury? New Haven? Hartford? Torrington? There are plenty of events celebrating every ethnicity in our state, would someone please step up so we can celebrate Dyngus Day 2023 together?