Easter customs ppp

EASTER CUSTOMS

Easter Eggs The eggs are hardboiled and dyed on Thursday are now used in a game where they are hit against each other and whoever is left with an un-cracked egg is the ‘winner’. The breaking of the eggs is symbolic of Christ breaking free from the tomb from where he arose after death.

Flaounes This Cypriot cheese-filled pastry. Delicious with a filling of pecorino romano, halloumi and sultanas.

Paskies Pastry filled with lamb meat and cheese

Great Friday

• On the Friday morning before Easter (Good Friday or “Great Friday” as it is called in Greek) families carrying flowers, gather in all the churches around the island. The flowers are collected and carried by young girls to decorate the ‘Epitaphios’ during the church service. The Epitaphios is the icon which depicts Christ after he has been removed from the cross, lying supine, as his body is being prepared for burial.

Lampratzia Before the 11 p.m. service, which is called “The service of the Resurrection,” church bells sound out in all the villages and towns of Cyprus calling everyone to come and celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Huge bonfires are lit in the churchyards. The woods are brought by young men weeks before.

Easter Saturday

The church services on Easter Saturday starts at 11 pm and few minutes before midnight, the lights in the church are switched off . The lights are switched on again at midnight and the priest calls the congregation to “take from his candle the light which never dies.” The flame is passed from person to person until everyone is holding a lit candle.

Every person carries a large unlit lambada (candle) .

Easter Sunday

The family gather for the festive Easter Sunday lunch . The main dish is souvla: lamb meat cooked on charcoal.

EASTER CUSTOMS IN ITALY

A festival and holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus. “Pasqua” (Easter) is after Lent and the day after is called “Pasquetta” (in English, Easter Monday).

VIA CRUCIS

On Good Friday, the Pope celebrates the via Crucis or Stations of the Cross in Rome near the Colosseum. The Via Crucis is a rite of the Catholic Church with which the painful journey of Jesus is reconstructed and commemorated.

TRADITIONAL FOOD

Traditional Easter foods across Italy may include lamb, chocolate eggs, colomba and “cuddura cu l’ovu”.

CHOCOLATE EGGS

COLOMBA

A traditional cake made of: flour, butter, sugar, eggs, salt, raisins and almonds.

They make children happy and they are open on Easter Sunday. There is a surprise inside.

TRADITIONAL FOOD

LAMB

«CUDDURA CU L’OVU»

A traditional Sicilian food over Easter time, it’s similar to a biscuit and has an egg in the middle of it.

For the Christian religion the lamb is the symbol of sacrifice par excellence.

TRADITIONAL EASTER GAMES

TRUC

THE EGG PALIO

The participants face off trying to break the shells of the opponents' eggs with their own egg.

It consists in sliding some cooked chicken eggs along a basin of sloping sand, with the aim of making them touch each other: whoever hits the opponent's egg gets a prize.

Easter customs of Greece

It is a greek custom.We usually paint the eggs red.

We usually paint boiled eggs in a pan full of water and beetroot (or special paint). We paint them in our houses on Holy Thursday. After we finish painting we can decorate them by drawing on them or by putting stickers.

On Easter Sunday when the family is together and they have finished their food we do the ‘’egg challenge’’.Everybody gets an egg and hits it with somebody else’s egg.Then the person whose egg broke loses and the other person whose egg didn’t break wins.We do this with the whole family for fun. After that we usually eat the eggs.

Good Friday, the epitaph:

The Lent lasts 7 weeks.It begins on Monday and it finishes on Great Saturday. During the Lent we don’t eat meat ,fish and products derived from animals. Ιn Lent we can eat legumes, vegetables, squid, octopus and many other which are delicious.

Good Friday is a day of mourning for Christians as Christ’s crucifixion takes place in dawn of the same day. From the dawn people, especially women prepare the epitaph. The epitaph is a simulation of the Christ’s tomb. It is decorated with flowers. About 9 o’clock in the evening, people carry the epitaph all around the church or all around the church’s neighbourhood. First on the row is the priest who prays. Girls hold candles and flowers το illuminate the street. The other people walk and pray all together holding simple candles.

Kids draw the lent.The drawing shows a woman with 7 legs. At the end of every week we cut a leg of her.

Easter candles and cookies

Easter candles are given to us by our godmothers/godfathers, for the Resurrection. The candle holds a special place on the Day of Resurrection, when just before midnight, all the lights of the church switch off. Then the priest comes out, chants the "Defte lavete fos" and with his Easter candle, he gives the Holy light to the believers. You can buy an Easter candle or even decorate your own, there are many ways to do it!

Women make special Easter cookies. They are round and can be eaten on Easter Sunday, not before!

Resurrection, Great Saturday

On Saturday night we go to the church for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. There we light up the easter candle and pray all together. Later people take the Holy light home. By the time people arrive to their houses they eat a soup called “Magiritsa”. This is the most traditional food after the Resurrection. “Μagiritsa” includes lamb’s lungs and guts, these are the main ingredients. The woman of the house makes this soup. And the next day is Easter Sunday.

Easter Sunday

The morning after the Resurrection is the Easter Sunday. Every Easter Sunday the families meet in someone’s house (usually in the grandparents house) and there they cook their meals. That day the lent is over, so people eat (always) meat. The traditional foods we eat in Greece that day is lamb and kokoretsi. Kokoretsi includes lamb’s guts. The best thing about Easter Sunday is the chocolate bunny. This day we also eat as many sweets as we want. And this is how Easter Sunday lasts.

This is a plate of kokoretsi:

Easter: Customs of Spain

TYPICAL DISHES

Torrijas

Rollos

It’s a Spanish Easter treat made by soaking slices of stale bread in sugared milk flavoured with cinnamon

It is a sweet pastry consisting of yeast dough, sugar, cinnamon.

PROCESSIONS

Easter in Spain is celebrated with processions in the street.

EASTER SUNDAY

One of the most important processions take place on Easter Sunday, it is called “Procesión del Encuentro”.

Palm Sunday It starts the Easter celebrations. People bring ‘palms’ made of paper flowers, dried flowers, and twigs to the church for the blessing. There are processions around the church to commemorate the day Jesus entered Jerusalem.

Painted eggs (pisanki)

Adults at home and kids at schools decorate hard-boiled eggs in shells: with paints, markers, crayons. More advanced techniques include wax decorating, and the old school way Polish grandmas did it: coloring eggs in boiling water with onion skins and vinegar.

Holy Saturday

People bring to churches baskets (called in Polish święconka) filled with food to get a special blessing. Baskets usually include eggs as a symbol of rebirth (pisanki – boiled eggs painted in various colours and patterns), bread, salt, sausage, sometimes other food – chocolate, cake, horseradish etc. Food from święconka basket is shared the next morning during festive Easter breakfast.

Many people in Poland start the day with 6 am morning mass (Rezurekcja). The most important event of a day is a family breakfast that starts with sharing blessed eggs with the members of the family and wishing each other good health, happiness for the rest of the year. They eat Święconka (blessed food), then żurek soup (also known as white barszcz), bigos, sausage with horseradish and cake.

EASTER SUNDAY

EASTER MONDAY (WET MONDAY)

Śmigus dyngus is an old tradition in Poland in which people use buckets (kids usually play with water guns) to soak each other with water. It’s safe to stay home on Wet Monday and avoid street water fights.

Easter Customs in Croatia

Croatia is mostly Roman Catholic country and Easter is one of the most important holidays of the year. Easter customs are an important part of Croatian tradition.

Preparations for Easter Easter is celebrated each year on a different date, but it is usually celebrated on one of the Sundays between the 22nd March and 25th April. Preparations for Easter last for 40 days and end on the Sunday before Easter – Palm Sunday, after which the Holy Week begins.

Holy Week

Good Friday Good Friday is a day of strict fast when people must abstain from meat so they usually eat fish. Strict fast means that once a day you can eat until full while the other two meals are symbolic. Holy Saturday On Holy Saturday we prepare the food basket that is worn to church to be blessed. Baskets usually contain ham, horse raddish, sausages, boiled Easter eggs, and green onions. The blessed food is the first dish that everyone must eat on Easter morning.

Palm Sunday Some parts of Croatia have a custom of people washing their faces with flowers – usually violets (ljubičice) – and other plants on the morning of Palm Sunday. Young girls collect spring flowers and put them in the wash basin. Often the entire house is decorated with spring flowers. People gather in churches with olive branches. These branches are blessed and brought back home.

Easter eggs (pisanice)

During Easter, people decorate Easter eggs with bright colors, they put them on the table or give them as gifts, especially to young children. Before dyes became common, people used natural dyes made from plants or vegetables (onion skin). The word pisanica comes from the Croatian word that means “ writing.” The most common phrase put on pisanica is Happy Easter, or “ Sretan Uskrs.” Other common decorations are doves, crosses, flowers, traditional patterns, and other slogans wishing health and happiness.

Easter Sunday

On Easter morning people go to church. They bring their Easter baskets with traditional Easter food. When they come home, the family eats the blessed food. For Easter lunch people usually have ham with boiled eggs, spring onion and horse raddish, roast lamb with potatoes, soup and Easter cookies.

Traditional Easter games

On Easter day, a traditional game called “tucanje” is played in which at least two people choose eggs and hold them vertically while one person lightly taps the end of the other egg with their end, to see whose egg will crack first. If your egg cracks, you must choose another one and tap the other person’s egg, and they continue until all the eggs have been used and cracked but the last one. Whoever holds the strongest egg at the end and whose egg has not been cracked wins this game.