With term and the deadlines that come with it coming to an end, everyone starts preparing to head home for the long awaited Easter break. We’re all looking forward to mum’s cooking, seeing family and friends, and spending what’s left of our student loan on Cadbury’s, and probably not thinking all too much about why there is a holiday for us to be going home for.
For many people, Easter is an annual Christian holiday, with family and church services to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and equally for many of us it’s not a religious affair; it’s a weekend filled with hot cross buns, Easter bunny hunts for the children, and enough chocolate eggs to make us want to join the gym again.
We’re often taught from an early age in school about the Christian meaning of Easter, and it’s a holiday filled with many traditions which vary around the world, so HCX has taken a look at some of the other ways Easter is celebrated in different cultures.
In Bermuda, Good Friday is celebrated not just with hot cross buns, but with children flying home-made kites; the skies are filled with colorful kites with long tails, made of tissue paper and string on wooden crosses as a symbol of Christianity.
‘Holy Week’ in Haiti is a little different, and combines a mixture of Catholic and Voodoo traditions to fill 7 days with bright colourful parades and music, an annual pilgrimage and dancing, and even an animal sacrifice offering to the spirits, in the hope of good luck and festivities for the next year.
Huge bonfires called Easter Fires are lit in areas of Northwestern Europe on Easter Sunday and Monday; the local communities gather to drink and celebrate the ancient Saxon celebration of the upcoming Spring triumphing over Winter.
If you share our love for the gold Lindtt bunnies, don’t go looking for one in Australia as the Easter symbol down under instead is the Bilby; a small rodent with a long nose and ears on the verge of extinction, so the Aussie chocolate manufacturers produce Easter Bilbies and donate money towards its protection.
So wherever you are, and whatever you may be doing this Easter, HCX wishes you a lovely, and hopefully chocolate-filled Easter break!
Photocredits: blog.justgiving.com; commons.wikimedia.com; lightroomtutorials.blogspot; bbc.co.uk