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Well...now that Easter is approaching, I would like to know how do you celebrate it in America (and other countries too, of course). Here in Brazil we exchange chocolat gifts (usually large chocolat-made eggs. The one I bought for my girlfriend weighs 1,20 lb (0.53 kilos), gather the whole family to a nice lunch (where we usually eat codfish dishes) and, by 18:00 we go to mass (even me. I'm not a catholic, but mom would sure talk a lot if I did not went to mass once a year).
How do you celebrate Easter?
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Virgin sacrifice, bathe in blood, ask the powers of darkness for one more year of their favor.
The usual stuff. That Brazilian version seems really weird. Chocolate? Eggs? What the heck kind of Easter is that?
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Nossa, que saudades dos Ovos de Pascoa!! They were so very much chocolate!!! I loved the way they displayed them from the ceiling of the grocery stores, so there was this low, overhanging layer of colorful chocolate eggs as you shopped.
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Easter Sunrise Service, followed by breakfast at church. Then Sunday School and “regular” church service, followed by Easter Dinner at home with family and friends.
When I was little we also had an egg hunt, sometimes before church, sometimes after. My parents hid decorated eggs and candy in the living room for us to search for.
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Slash, we used to celebrate like this here in Mordor, but all those sacrifices were becoming so...boring...so we throwed the eggs and chocolate in. ;-)
Narnia, did you enjoy easter when you were here? They still display easter eggs like that, did you know? People buy them like if there were no tomorrow! I'm lucky I bough mines earlier this year!
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I'm in charge of Easter preparations this year, because my wife and kids are out of town and won't get back until the night before. I'm going to have baskets with a little fake grass, and a few (very few) sweet treats inside. My grandmother makes homemade chocolates every Easter and Christmas, so we'll probably have those, too. We usually color boiled eggs the day before Easter, but I think my kids will be doing that with their grandparents and bringing them home, so I won't have to do it. Last year we had a small egg hunt in our backyard, but I don't know if we'll do that this year.
One thing my parents did, and I have adopted, is to include at least one new book in the Easter basket. I remember getting my copy of Robinson Crusoe that way.
As kids, we used to get new church clothes for Easter, but my family doesn't do that now. We do go to church, of course, but we would do that anyway. And I should probably make a nice dinner, maybe a turkey breast.
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Morning, the easter bunny comes and leaves little paper footprints leading outside to the garden where by the time I get out of bed, colourful eggs can be seen. However, breakfast comes first, and for breakfast we have boiled eggs that are decorated by us with pencil crayons at the table however we want, but usually as faces.
After breakfast there is the egg hunt, a roast dinner, and more chocolate eggs.
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Friday we find a "willing" volunteer to be beaten and crucified.
Saturday we prepare the chicken's feet and the goat and chant some voodoo mantras while drinking his blood and chowing down on choice bits of flesh we cut from his body. (We'd do it Thursday night but he's not dead at that point)
Sunday at dawn the zombie (what's left of him) rises from his grave.
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A tradition born out of a practical joke my friend and I pulled when I was 13, we dress up like ducks, chickens or rabbits. Usually just for dinner. One year a wolf came to the table too.
That tradition, however, proved to be too much work. So we've made hats some years to wear to Easter dinner. This year I will make challah bread as my great effort. That has nothing to do with hats or dressing up like a chicken, but it tastes a lot better. Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Let's see, last year I tried to remember to say "thank you" to everyone who wished me a happy Easter. Then I thought, why not join in the merry greeting? Wouldn't you know, the first (and only) person I said it to replied, "I'm Jewish."
This year, I'll trade trying to politely fit in with telling really awful crucifixion jokes. Consider yourselves warned.
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We wake up early in the morning on Easter and go to church, we're in charge of the Easter Pancake breakfast each year. So we do that until all the services are over and then we go find baskets.
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Baskets full of stuff the kids don't need, church services, taking tons of pictures, and then dinner with family.
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You know, whenever someone was being particularly whiny, we'd say (learning this from a monk, mind you), "Get off the cross, we need the wood for the fire."
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When I was a little kid, my mom would fill about a dozen plastic eggs with candy (rolos, hershey kisses, that sort of thing) and hide them around the house. Then I'd go around finding them and putting them in my plastic pastel basket.
Then I'd eat the candy. Gradually.
Edit: oh. And in my art class, for a few years in a row in middle/high school, we made Ukrainian Easter eggs. They're awesome. I took art classes every saturday for about six years.
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We didn't do all that much for easter growing up other than color eggs, have easter egg hunts, and eat candy. But it was one of my favorite holidays because it was close to my birthday, and I often had an "Easter/Spring" theme to my parties. Sometimes we got "Easter baskets" and sometimes not. My parents never tried to get us to believe in an Easter Bunny or play that up at all.
My parents made a big effort to separate the secular aspects of Easter from the sacred. Because of this, all of the above events took place on Saturday. Sunday was a day for reflection and reverence and we focused on the Christian meaning of Easter only.
Incidentally, if Christmas fell on Sunday we celebrated as usual, we just usually went to church first. We never celebrated Halloween on a Sunday. Also incidentally, while they had a problem with the secular aspects of Easter, they didn't seem to have any problems with the secular aspects of Christmas. Both secular celebrations have their roots in pagan practices.
I will probably continue a similar tradition in our family, simple coloring of eggs and hunts on the day before Easter, but focusing only on the sacred aspects of Easter on Sunday. Also, we seem to have started the tradition of having a big, tasty, glazed ham and having lots of family over. Mmmmmmmm.... Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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On Friday evening, we paint the eggs. Saturday morning, we bless the food in church. The basket needs to contain: eggs, bread, salt, horse-radish and sausage. We also add sugar lambs and eggs.
The food is part of a holiday breakfast the next day.
And on Monday, the boys are allowed to pour gallons of water on girls. I always get back wet from church. And sometimes, with especially rude kids, I didn't get to church.
[edit] And, of course, there are the gifts. On Sunday morning, when you wake up, they are hidden under your bed.
[ April 09, 2004, 02:33 AM: Message edited by: Kama ]
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It seems that big chocolate-made eggs are a brazilian thingh then, isn't it?
The secular aspect of easter over here revolves around chocolate. Ester is a time of the year where people give and receive chocolate. Not other candys. Only chocolate. Veeery weird (but very tasty, nonetheless).
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When I was a kid our family would have a picnic out in the desert on the Saturday before Easter Sunday. The desert is beautiful and not too hot this time of year. Dad would layout an orienteering course for each of the boys, and we would have to use a compass to find our Easter baskets.
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"And the kids eat the chocolate eggs because the color of the chocolate and the color of the cross... [laughter] Well you ****ing explain it!"
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Ela, I have always loved Easter candy (probably because of the proximity of Easter and my birthday). Is Easter candy really not kosher? Or only not kosher at this time of year? Could you buy a stash and eat it in the fall? Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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It's not kosher for Passover; but much of it is kosher. Can't buy it ON Passover, but then again, it often goes on post-Easter-half-off just after.
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I bet there's nobody here who's going to celebrate Easter quite the way I'm going to. On Easter Sunday I will sit down with my bishop and tell him that I'm suffering from depression and ask him to help me get help for my problem.
I see this as a the first step down the path to recovery.
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Derrell, that sounds like a highly appropriate way to celebrate the Resurrection. Good for you!
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skillery No, I'm going to ask him to refer me to counselor, or shrink to help me deal with my depression.
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This year, I'm going to look cute at church and hope someone takes pity on me (I'm guessing there's a good chance I may be invited over for lunch by the couple that looks out for me here.) As for goodies, I have been informed that a package full of them is en route and should hopefully get here by Sunday.
Derrell, I'm glad that you will be getting help. I commend you for your courage.
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My family is a little overboard with Easter, as with other Holidays, I blame my grandma. Usually my parents, siblings and I dye about 3 dozen eggs during the week, we also use crayons to draw pictures and do the shrink wrap stuff. Saturday night we go to grandma and grandpa's with the eggs and have dinner, then with my Aunt, Uncles, and cousins we all sleep in various nooks and crannies where there's a patch of carpet. I should mention I have a fairly small family, 3 brothers, 1 aunt, 2 uncles, and 2 cousins. We wake up in the morning to find baskets with usually a small gift, often a book, but sometimes something else, lots of candy the biggest of which are large chocolate bunnies. Then we have the hunt. There are usually 8-10 dozen dyed eggs (the others dyed by my Grandma and/or my aunt and cousins) hidden on their 5 acre property and in the house. I believe my grandfather wakes up very early to hide them, but to the younger kids it's the Easter bunny. The egg hunt lasts for some time, until all except 4-5 are found and the kids have gone to eat their candy worn out by the hunt, those are the missing easter eggs, sometimes discovered by the dog many months later, apparently the easter bunny is a good hider. Then we sit down to a breakfast of eggs. I help my mom, grandma, and aunt in the kitchen working on dinner which will have ham, lots of deviled eggs, and various other foods. At dinner Grandpa presides, and says a nice long prayer, then the younger kids are fed at their table then the adults are served. Afterwards we all argue over how many eggs we have to take home, then grab the candy and other things we got for Easter and head home. We really don't focus on the spiritual aspect, and Eduardo, I think that in America the large chocolate Easter bunnies are roughly equivalent of your chocolate eggs. The secular version of Easter includes a lot of candy.
Edited to say that this year I will probably go to church then come back to my room to eat candy and maybe read the New Testament on my own, but it's nice to think about what they'll be doing at home.
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I usually have a nice honey baked ham with my wife and kids and sit around enjoying a good day off.
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In the old country, we had our own version of the Easter hunt. First, we'd release all these cute little bunnies. When they were well hidden, we'd let the kids go out and hunt them down with their Easter Klingen. Then we'd have a nice supper of KaninchencEintopfgericht.
It was efficient and fun and we liked it that way.
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I like to spend countless hours working the most precise wax pattern on my egg shells, dying, in tedious manner, over and over again. 'Til the depth of the pattern overlay and complexity takes my breath away.
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I went to my pastor when I needed help and it was the best possible thing to do. He referred me to a counselor who has helped me make real changes, and I will be forever grateful I took that step.
What you're doing takes courage. I commend you, and I'll pray for you.
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Belle, thank you. (((Belle))) Starting that thread about depression was the hardest thing I've ever done. While I consider the people of Hatrack to be family, telling all of you that I'm suffering from depression was truly a scary proposition.
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No, I'm going to ask him to refer me to counselor, or shrink to help me deal with my depression.
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