Polish Christmas carols are among the most beautiful in the world – and the least known. This time of year American choirs sing carols from France, Austria (of course), Spain and even Ukraine but almost never from Poland.
So when we received a notice that a Polish singer was coming to South Florida to sing koledy I thought this would be my chance to hear the carols I grew to love during my three Christmases in Warsaw.
Around 4 pm on Saturday Hania and I drove to Saint Joseph’s in Davie. People slowly filed into the church, greeting one another in Polish. Their greetings continued well past the 5 pm starting time. In fact, it wasn’t till 5:30 that the priest walked to the lectern to introduce the singer. He went on for quite a while. In Polish. Then he said what he’d just said in English. He did this numerous times; once he switched the order but forgot that he had, and said the same thing twice in English. The singer sat on a stool a few feet away wearing a red dress and a patient smile. She was a young blind woman who had apparently won a kind of Poland’s Got Talent show.
Finally, she was allowed to sing. She started with "O Tannenbaum." In German. I would not have thought that singing in German in a Polish church was the smartest move. But when she finished, the audience gave her a warm round of applause. Then she sang “White Christmas,” in English. Again, probably not the best choice for a church in Florida.
Her third song was a Polish carol, one of the lesser known ones. This she followed with “Winter Wonderland.” What she sang after that I have no idea, as Hania and I departed before she could finish it.
