Easter is a great time for giving your creativity free rein. Different countries celebrate this time of year in their own original way. Here are some fun traditions from all over the world to help you enjoy Holy Week to the full.
Painting hardboiled eggs
This is a wonderful family activity. Simply boil the eggs for 10 minutes until they are nice and hard, let them cool and then paint them with your favourite designs. You can use coloured acrylic paint or a spray can and add glitter, feathers or other decorative extras. When finished, they look great on a cake or in a basket as a table centrepiece. This is a common tradition in countries such as Romania, where people take it very seriously and cities hold painted egg contests.
Make a colomba
This typical Italian cake is the Easter equivalent of a pannetone or pandoro. Made with flour, butter, eggs, sugar and candied orange peel, with a delicious almond glaze, it can be shaped into any form you like. So be adventurous and enjoy an Italian Easter!
Fly a kite
A lovely Spanish tradition, very popular in the city of Valencia, is to fly a kite on Easter Monday, after a picnic with plenty of chocolate. Kite fans can’t wait for Easter, which traditionally marks the start of the kite-flying season. A great family activity is to spend an afternoon making, painting and decorating a kite ready to fly it on Easter Monday.
Dress up as witches and wizards
If you like dressing up, you’ll love Easter in Finland, where kids put on terrifying costumes and swap sweets for painted willow leaves. People also traditionally light bonfires on Easter Saturday to drive away bad spirits.
Go on an Easter egg hunt
For an Anglo-Saxon-flavoured Easter, try hiding chocolate eggs in a park or garden for children (and grownups) to find. This is a very popular part of Holy Week in Great Britain, together with the delicious toasted hot cross buns (with spices and raisins) traditionally eaten on Good Friday. In the United States, the Easter Bunny makes an annual appearance at the White House, which opens its doors to children to hunt for and roll Easter eggs in the gardens.
Meet the Easter Bilby
If you find yourself in Australia for Easter, you’re likely to bump into the Easter Bilby, the antipodean version of the Easter Bunny. To help raise awareness of this endangered species, thousands of chocolate Easter Bilbies are made every year, to the delight of young and old alike.
Bells filled with sweets and chocolates
Church bells fall silent over Easter in France. Tradition has it that they sprout wings and fly off to Rome, only to come back laden with sweets and chocolates, which they leave for children in gardens.
Hang coloured eggs in trees
Children and grownups in Germany get together to hang coloured eggs on trees in the garden. Many people paint the eggs themselves, although you can also buy them ready painted. The important thing is to liven up your garden with plenty of brightly coloured eggs.
