Sylwester
New Year’s Eve, named after Pope Sylvester, celebrated with galas, house parties, champagne and open-air fireworks.
Sylwester, 31 December, is named after Saint Sylvester, whose name day it is, so every Sylwester in Poland celebrates twice. The evening is either a bal sylwestrowy, a ball with a dress code, a house party with friends, or a sylwester pod chmurką, a free open-air concert on the town square; the biggest, in Zakopane or Warsaw, is broadcast on television with pop stars until past midnight. The food is party food rather than a sit-down dinner: śledzik, herring in oil or cream, sałatka jarzynowa, plates of small kanapki, and vodka or wine until the champagne comes out.
At midnight the odliczanie, the countdown, ends with fireworks over every town, glasses of szampan and kisses, and the wishes 'Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku' and the old-fashioned 'Do siego roku', a phrase so archaic that nobody can translate it exactly. New Year's Day is a public holiday spent recovering, and January opens the karnawał, the ball season that runs until Lent, so the party clothes stay out.
The pack has 36 words spread across these domains.
Same words in both. Beginner gets more help: matching and completing. Advanced listens and spells it out unaided. Pick it in practice; it locks when you take the scored run.
Practise as often as you like, all year. The scored run happens once, while the competition is open, and cannot be retaken.