Easter is one of the most important festivals in the Christian calendar, one of the most-loved holidays ever. While the UK celebrates the festival with regular bunnies, chocolate egg hunts, and family get-togethers, the world celebrates it differently. How do you celebrate Easter?
Easter Weekends differ from one place to another. Yes, different countries have different traditions around this holiday. Here are different ways in which people around the world celebrate this festival.
Australia
In Australia, people celebrate the festival differently. As rabbits in Australia destroy crops, they choose to embrace a different marsupial for their Easter mascot. They prefer the Bilby over the Easter Bunny. Children now consider fetching their eggs from Easter Bilby, which has quite a cute face and long ears.
France
France is famous for a lot of things, right from crepes to terrines. The French love their eggs, and yes, they find many ways to boil, scramble and have them. Since the French love their eggs, they choose to celebrate the festival with eggs and have a humongous omelet party.
It is also famous as the Giant Omelette Festival. This is a festival where the villages of Bessieres in Southwest France crowd to the town square to watch members of the Giant Omelette Brotherhood cook a giant omelet made of 5000 eggs with bacon, garlic, and onion. The event started way back in 1973, and today, you could witness over 10,000 people traveling to the town square to watch the enormous omelet cooked to perfection.
Greece
In Greece, the celebrations start with a traditional mass. At 11 am, the church bells start ringing to mark an end to the liturgy, and the residents start tossing off the clay pots off their balconies. The custom is in celebration of Christ’s Resurrection.
The Corfiots took after the Venetians who threw their old things from the window during New Year’s Day. This act makes them believe that they will get new things the next year once they throw away the old things. This event is ear-shatteringly loud, and the locals have a field day throwing their earthenware around.
Guatemala
In Guatemala, people celebrate it with flowers and sawdust. The entire path, about 1-km long, is strewn with flowers and makes up for a pretty sight. The whole process can take more than several days.
On the day of the holiday, people walk over the carpets and make their way to the local churches. And they mark the event by listening to the church service!
Cyprus
This beautiful place has some hardcore Easter traditions to follow. This is more likely to be a Hunger Games challenge than the more traditional way of celebrating the festival with colorful eggs and bunnies. Cyprus likes to do things differently and puts up an Easter Fire. And the townsfolk come together to watch the flames light up the sky orange to kickstart the festivities.
It is not only about lighting up the fire, but there is some competitiveness to it. The neighborhood’s younger boys search the area looking for wood scraps. And as these wood scrapes are quite scarce in the region, they might get into a tussle! Sometimes the police have to intervene to break up fights between teenage boys who try to scour wooden scraps during Easter.
Norway
Now, this has to be one of the unique Easter traditions you have ever heard of. There is an Easter tradition in Norway where you need to have a sit-down family session and read or watch murder mysteries.
And the best part the family has to take turns in finding out who the murderer is. If you thought that this type of celebration is only for a few people, you are wrong. This is legitimately celebrated all around the country. The tradition is so popular that even TV channels air the murder mysteries during Easter, and sometimes movie shows are released during this time.
The Easter traditions are as different as each other and equally intriguing too. Do let us know how the Easter celebrations in your place are different from these. How are the Easter traditions celebrated in your part of the world? Tell us all about it in the comments section and spread the cheer. Happy Easter!