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Published: April 16th 2009
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Canadian Easter
Trail of choco bunnies Canadian/Czech Easter
To celebrate easter this year I was given the highly sought after role of the easter bunnny. Since my flat mates are from Czech and they do not celebrate easter in the same fashion that we do I decided to give them a little bit of a Canadian easter and in return they gave me a taste of the Czech easter. Before we get into the actual events of the weekend here is a background on the easter weekend traditions of Ireland and Czech Republic.
IRELAND:
Being a highly religious country this means they take easter seriously. So on the good friday EVERYTHING was closed especially pubs and restaurants if they serve alcohol and stores could be open but had to close for a certain part of the day. Everyone had to abstain from meat, alcohol, and outdoor work. People do their spring cleaning, get their hair cut, do their nails, and buy new outfits in preparation for the new season to come. It should be a day of rest and inner preparation.. you know that mind, body, spirit business. . Apparently, on friday people will give gifts of eggs, since it is something
that should not be eaten during lent, traditionally painted but these days in a delicious choco form. The eggs cant get eaten until sunday though.
Saturday is meant to be a peaceful day mainly going to mass and easter vigil. I think I heard something about priests coming to bless the house.
Then on Sunday everyone must get up early before sunrise as did the women at Jesus' tomb. They watch the sunrise like the 'son of god' rose from the dead. They will get dressed and go to church. Then do things with eggs for most part of the day: paint eggs, rolling egg races, easter egg hunts, etc. Then the family gathers for Easter Dinner a heaping of all the things you are not supposed to have during lent and then after dinner the children are given their choco eggs. They are only supposed to get their eggs if they have been good during lent and never broke their fast. THANK GOD WE NEVER HAD THAT RULE... i mean thank goodness.. or as kylee says ...thank gawww...
CZECH REPUBLIC:
The Czech do things a little and a lot different. Since a lot of people
in Czech are atheist the holiday has little to nothing to do with Jesus and everythiing to do with farming and goodluck for the coming crop season and health and youthfullness in the new year. The egg being an important symbol of new life is vital to the Czech easter celebration. On the Sunday the girls stay home and decorate easter eggs and bake Lamb shaped cakes and other preparations for the easter monday meal. The boys make a whipping stick (Pomlazka) out of pussywillow twigs by braiding the twigs into one stick. On easter monday the boys go from house to house, knock on the door, sing a carol (that sounds similar to trick-or-treat but requests eggs instead of candy), and whip the girls for youthfullness and good health. The girls then give the boys the decorated eggs, some candy, a shot of alcohol and tie a ribbon to the end of their stick. The boys then move on to the next house. They would then have a family meal consisting of different egg foods.
KATIE'S EASTER IN IRELAND:
Soooo for easter this year I was The Bunny. It got up early on sunday and hid choco
eggs and bunnies around the flat and then ran into everyones rooms yelling "the easter bunny came...get up get up... the easter bunny" karel promptly said 'noooo too early... no bunny.. no bunny..." at which point I told him he had 2 min to get up or else... he got up and him and Monika began searching for their eggs (milan and Pepa were away for the weekend so they missed out) Monika was clearly an expert taking only 5 min to find all her choco while karel came in with a dismal 20min! I then made a delicious french toast breakfast with real Canadian maple syrup (curtesy Taylor).
Monika went off to work and Karel and I took a trip to Howth, a super cute coastal city. We walked along the sea port, visited the booths in the market, and then WE FED WILD SEALS!!! We bought some frozen day old fish (5 for 2euro) and fed the seals that swam up to the docks. They were super cute. I think there was about 5 or 6 of them at one point. We, and by we I mean the seals, finished the one bag and then karel decided
that we had to get another bag to fed them more. So we did and they were very grateful seals. After the excitement of the seals we hopped back on the train home so that I could meet Monika at church for easter mass.
We came home and watched a movie... well a couple movies...
Then easter monday came and Monika got up early and made a czech breakfast for everyone before she went to work. It was czech bread with egg salad, cucumber, and tomatoes. It was delicious!!! Karel also found some traditional Czech easter poppy buns for us and that was really yummy too. Monika and I were hoping to paint some eggs and bake a lamb shaped cake but Ireland kinda sucks for lamb shaped baking pans and barely had any food colouring (all they had was yellow) so we didnt get a chance to do either of those.
It was definitely a lovely easter filled with old traditions and sharing of new traditions. I will never forget Karel mummbling in his half sleep ' no bunny... no bunny' lol that is priceless. I told him that he shouldnt complain that I woke him
up at 9:30am when at home we used to get up at 6am.
And thats all folks. Hmmm how porky pig of me. I hope everyone enjoyed their easters as much as I did.
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Kim
non-member comment
Great Easter Story!
He Katie Great story. You're a wonderful writer but some reason I can't seem to activate your pics of this particular event!