At home we love traditions, and above all transmit to children the different rituals that occur throughout the year and that make sense of many of the parties we know. I believe that all these rituals are more related to the natural cycles that mark the passage of time, and I am convinced that they help us stay connected with Nature.
In two weeks it will be Easter Sunday, a very important Christian holiday because if the birth of Jesus is celebrated at Christmas, on Sunday April 8 we will celebrate his resurrection. The fact that we are not believers does not keep us from knowing these facts, and even more so when - on occasion - forms of expression have pagan roots that come from before Christianity.
This year we will celebrate our first "Easter egg hunt", and now we will delve a little more into this custom that comes from other countries. But first I would like to stop a little in this element so present during Holy Week: the egg. It symbolizes the (re) birth of life after winter, and also fertility, for Christians is the obvious sign that abstinence from animal derived products marked by Lent has ended.
We have all seen an American movie in which Children dressed in pastel colors or floral prints look for decorated eggs in a garden with little baskets in their hands. Actually it is a custom that the German emigrants moved, and it is that Germany is one of the countries where it is lived and celebrates more intensely the fact of giving eggs on Easter Sunday. But it is also celebrated in France although with some variation that we will explain later. I have a French friend, and also a German ... although this year will be the first our guide to organize the search for eggs with children, in fact we will do it at home.
And now I will explain how you can organize your egg search:
In the previous days you will buy eggs that you will cook and decorate, you can also put chocolate eggs in the shopping cart because they are really what children expect. Lately we have seen how plastic eggs proliferated when Easter approaches, but - in fact - I think it is much better to use them edible, among other things because it broadens the possibilities of getting involved in the preparation.
You also have to make the baskets, in fact you can organize the dads and moms to elaborate in each house those that are needed. We will stay all the families to make them together with children included, it will be more fun.
In all-terrain Moms (Ana and Rebeca's blog) there is a detailed explanation of how to make the baskets, we will use it because it is very simple.
- One of the most important steps is choose and delimit the place, and then think about where the eggs will hide. As we are already in spring and supposedly it will be good weather, we will choose a friend's garden or an outdoor park.
Delimiting means being clear that if the site is very large, children will only be able to move through the marked areas that can be marked.
And if the number of participants is very high, we will also have foreseen the possibility of organize groups of “egg hunters”. We need to be clear about the members of each group, but at least know that on the day of the search we will indicate to the children that they will go two by two (or three by three).
On Easter Sunday, the person in charge of “hiding” the eggs should get up early to place the treasures strategically: you can take advantage of the tree bases, large garden stones, planters, etc.
I had told you that there are some differences in the way of celebrating this tradition between the two countries where it has most obviously been maintained. And it is that in Germany it is the Easter bunny that leaves the eggs (you know that according to popular culture if it is present at this time it is due to its fertility), while in France it is the bells of the whole country that full of joy for the resurrection of Jesus Christ, they ring again after two and a half days of sadness
- And it was time to take action: each child with his basket will know if he will search alone or accompanied and will receive indications regarding the limits within which "there is a possibility of finding."
From that moment We will hear laughter, shouts of joy, although perhaps also some “hey! I had seen that one first ”And finally everyone will return with full baskets, and whoever has had less luck will help him by putting some chocolate eggs. It will only be to eat them ...
Of course the egg also appears in the traditions of our country for Holy Week, and if you do not look at the "monas" so present in the Valencian Community, Aragon and Catalonia: duca "cocas" with their cooked egg embedded in the center. So with the influence of other cultures or without them, we will also have this precious food, even when it comes to decorating it, so in our series of spring items on Wednesdays, next week we will paint eggs.
Images | mistaric, USAG - Humphreys On Peques and More | On chocolate eggs, florid spring and the meanings of Easter, Count the weeks until Easter with Old Lent, Two recipes for typical Easter desserts
