Where have all the carollers in Poland gone?

Is it your impression that youngsters going house to house or flat to flat carolling in urban blocks was more common in Poland a number years ago? The strange thing is that kasa (cash) seems to be uppermost in most Poles' minds these days, and that would be a good way to earn a little extra pocket change. You'd think Biedronka, Lidl and Tesco would be selling carolling costumes (King Herrod, death, devil, etc.), pole-mounted carolling stars, portable creches, etc. for house to house carollers. Instead they are loaded with Halloween junk. And stuff for Valentine's day too although that is a spending occasion with no cash returns for the avergahe participant.

Kid carollers still roam around my block of flats each Christmas. :):):)

After reading your post, I have decided to spare more change for them in order to keep up the tradition. I was so f...g mean before.

Thanks!

that's nice
did they do that during PRL-days?
In my part of Wrocław and Zielona Góra they never did :(

ooops.... I don`t remember. I didn`t pay attention to Christmas carollers in PRL times. I was preoccupied with girls, parties and studies. Sorry. ):):):):)

It was more common in PRL. In Warsaw too occasionally kids still come with a cardboard fold-out creche or wearing a Burger King crown and suchlike, but it seems far less common. I can see where kids aged 1˛12-18 couldn't care less about keeping up some 'quaint' and 'corny' (from a teen's perspective) custom, but to overlook the extra cash opportunity?!

Polonius, do you really think that in our neighbourhood the parents would let them do anything as common? Too busy with piano lessons.

The carollers have come! You would never believe - three gypsy teenagers, two pretty girls and one short boy with golden dyed hair and funny sunglasses.. The girls sang in perfect Polish, the boy pretended to sing. Then they sang in Romanian. Wonderful! Amazing!

We had the carollers today. And last night, about 8pm, a band stopping at each junction of the road, to play for the close houses!

I used to do carolling with a theatre group (Teatr Wiejski "Węgajty") from near Olsztyn. We went into some crazy places, in the mountains, darkest Suwałki etc. One time we went somewhere over the northwest, and people didn't understand what the heck was going on. Later, we got to one house and the old man invited us in, watched the goat/turon, herod etc and then said, "You haven't been here for a while, last time i saw you was before the war".

In 1950's it was outlawed by commies but many places still did it.