Can you believe it, Easter is almost upon us. Didn’t we just have Christmas!
With less than 2 days until Easter Sunday, our kids certainly don’t hold back in reminding us, and I can hear them drooling hourly, pancakes with melted chocolate, marshmallows covered in melted chocolate, chocolate on toast, chocolate sandwiches, grated chocolate on corn flakes, chocolate with chocolate etc…
All around the UK kids are getting excited about Easter Egg hunts, participating in their schools Easter activities or just desperately eggs-cited about how high their chocolate egg mountain is going to be, and is it bigger than my siblings or my school mates. Be sure there will be loads of comparison pictures buzzing around on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.
Whilst this is now pretty normal 21st century stuff in the UK, Easter is celebrated around the world in a surprising variety of ways, with traditions differing from country to country according to their ethnic and cultural origins.
Here are a few examples…
In Hungry ‘Sprinkling’ is a popular Easter Monday tradition, in which boys sprinkle perfume, cologne or water over a young women’s head, and ask for a kiss. Hungarians used to believe that water has a cleaning, healing and fertility-inducing effect.
In the town of Haux (France) a giant omelette made with 4,500 eggs that feeds 1,000 people is served up in the town’s main square. Apparent, when Napoleon and his army travelled through the south of France, they stopped in a small town and ate omelette. Napoleon liked his so much, he ordered the towns folk to gather their eggs and make a giant omelette for his army the very next day.
One of the biggest Easter celebrations takes place in the Spanish city of Seville, where 52 different religious brotherhoods parade through the streets manifesting the crucifixion, with 1,000’s watching, the daily processions of bands and decorated candlelit floats, which heave with Baroque statues illustrating the Easter story.
We really like the sound of Easter in Bermuda. On Good Friday, the locals celebrate by flying home-made kites, eating codfish cakes and hot cross buns. This tradition is said to have begun when a local teacher from the British Army had difficulty explaining Christ’s ascension to Heaven to his Sunday school class. So he made a kite, traditionally shaped like a cross, to illustrate the Ascension.
Did you know, there are around seven million Catholics in Indonesia and Christianity was brought here by Portuguese missionaries. Statues from this time are carried through the streets. Young men consider it an honour to be chosen to play Jesus and be tied to the cross in various locations.
On the island of Corfu in Greece, the tradition of “Pot Throwing” takes place on the morning of Holy Saturday. People throw pots, pans and other earthenware out of their windows, smashing them on the street. They say the custom of throwing of pots welcomes spring and symbolizes the new crops that will grow in new pots. But others say it derives from the Venetians, who on New Year’s Day used to throw out all of their old items.
And of course in the United States, President Trump will host the annual Easter Egg Roll on the White House lawn on Easter Monday. The tradition, believed to date back to the early 19th century, involves children rolling a colored hard-boiled egg with a large serving spoon. You can bet the kids will trump the President at the finish.
Where ever you are this Easter, and whether you celebrate it or not, the team here wish you a fantastic Easter holiday. We’ll be certainly enjoying the break, and will return next Tuesday with the batteries fully charged, ready to help our customers make and save money on their office solutions.
