ŚWIĘTOWANIE DOROCZNE W POLSCE OKRESU PRL. WYMIAR EKONOMICZNY

The aim of this article is to show the specificity of celebrating annual holidays such as Christmas in Poland in the period of two decades of the Polish People’s Republic (PRL), seen from the angle of the private economy sphere. The theoretical perspective of the undertaken analysis is economic anthropology, which lets us look at Polish annual celebrations in the second half of the 20th century through material and economic dimensions of culture. The detailed source materials are provided by the private notes included in two collections of domestic bills run up in the period of the Polish People’s Republic by two families living in cities in central Poland and Upper Silesia. The conclusions drawn from the undertaken analysis let us notice that the economic way of examining the celebration period emphasizes the participation of products and material items in the building of a holiday reality. By focusing on the mundane actions of acquiring products and the calculations connected with them, one can reach the actual tissue of social life, the real undertaken actions and consumer decisions based on them, often resulting from local traditions and familial habits. Therefore, the economic approach in anthropology may be the key to recognizing the details of a cultural situation of a celebration, as well as the specificity of local family life and the character of the relationships made between people and between people and things.