- A quick and easy reference -

A step by step guide and International collection

of Folklore stories, recipies, carols and decorations

- including -

Family traditions - Origin of Wigilia Vigil Supper
Origin of aplatek Christmas wafer
Traditional recipes - Holiday poetry
Christmas folk art - Grandma's holiday secrets
Christmas Eve wishes from Pope John Paul II
Living histories from across the U.S. and Poland
polish carols in English and Polish with melody and chords
Make a place in Bethlehemin your home at Christmastime

- with -

Never before published photos and illustrations

in color and black and white.
Glossary, Pronunciation Guide
Regional map of Poland - 300 pages

The Reverend Czeslaw Michal Krysa is a native of Niagara Falls, New York. He is a graduate of Saints Cyril and Methodius Seminary at Orchard Lake, Michigan, the only Polish American Roman Catholic Seminary in the United States (founded in 1885).

Father Krysa holds a master's degree in Liturgical Arts from the University of Notre Dame. He also has received a Licentiate degree in Sacred Theology from the University of St. Paul, Ottawa, Canada. He is currently completing doctoral studies in Sacred Liturgy at the Pontifical International Institute of Saint Anselmo, Rome, Italy.

After his ordination in 1980, he served as parochical vicar at Saint John Gualbert R.C. parish, Cheektowaga, N.Y., and was active in numerous Polish American organizations in Western New York. In 1984, father Krysa was assigned by the Buffalo (New York) Diocese to the faculty of Graduate School of Theology at Orchard Lake.

Father Krysa specializes in popular religious devotion and the celebrations of the domestic church, namely, the family. He is a master artist in Polish pisanki, traditional "written" Easter Eggs, for which he received apprenticeship grants from the New York State Council on the Arts (1984) and the Folk Arts Program at Michigan State University Museum, Lansing (1993).

In 1984, father Krysa was twice named Citizen of the Year by the AmPol Eagle (Newspaper) and by the Town of Cheektowoga (New York) Polish American Arts Festival Committee for his efforts in propagating the Polish American heritage on the Niagara Frontier. In 1991, he received the Oskar Kolberg Award, the highest ethnographic honor awarded by the Polish Ministry of Culture. In 1994, he was the recipient of the Michigan Heritage Award from Michigan State university Museum for his contribution in the dual categories of traditional artist and community leader.