Post written by Lucille, a United Planet Team member.

Soon, we are going to celebrate Easter. This Holiday is celebrated by all Christians, though each country has very different traditions.

Picture taken by Stitch, Flickr

First, not everyone celebrates Easter at the same time! Indeed, the date is different for Western Christians and Eastern Orthodox congregations. This year, Western Christians are going to celebrate the holiday on April 12 and Eastern Christians on April 19. There are also differences in the way Easter is celebrated. Of course, there are religious celebrations, but also funny secular traditions! The French tradition says that the bells of all the churches go to Rome together with the Easter Bunny the last Thursday before Easter and does not return until Easter morning. Thus, you won’t hear any bell on the Friday or Saturday before Easter! Then, on the eve of Easter Saturday they come back from Rome and bring chocolates with them. On Sunday morning, the parents always hide chocolate eggs in their garden and the children have to hunt for them when they get up! The chocolates have many different forms, but they often come in the shape of bells, rabbits (for the Easter Bunny) and of course eggs! Sometimes the chocolates are hidden so well that you find them later in the year, or never at all. There are two games going on simultaneously: the children have to find the chocolates, and the parents have to remember where how many chocolates they have hidden in order to guide their children.
In France, families traditionally eat eggs or dishes made with eggs for lunch. When I was a child, my brother and I “helped my mother” to prepare lunch or make a cake. We would always attempt to remove the whole egg from its shell through the smallest hole possible, then wash it with caution, paint it and decorate it.

Picture taken by Rumblemumbles, Flickr

But my favorite part was looking for the chocolates! My parents always hide the biggest ones in very difficult places and we often had to climb a tree to find a huge Easter Bunny chocolate, or a giant chocolate egg with a present inside. Finding the biggest ones is not a problem! On the contrary, we never found the smallest ones…I guess the Easter Bunny hides them too well.

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Tags: bells, chocolates, Christians, Easter, Easter Bunny, games, hide chocolate eggs, religious celebrations, secular traditions

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 at 2:52 pm and is filed under Europe, Foreign Culture, France, Team Stories, travel, United Planet. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

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