7 Easter Traditions from Around the World
Easter is celebrated to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, three days after he was crucified. This festival was brought into America by the Germans in 1700s, and ever since Easter has been celebrated in full glory and merriment. In the US, Easter is all about chocolates, eggs and candies, and the Easter egg is considered to be symbolic of new life and fertility. But this is not the belief all over the world. Different regions and countries have different beliefs, different customs and traditions to honor and celebrate this day. Listed below are 7 Easter traditions from around the world.
1. Easter Egg Roll, Washington DC
Washington DC has been witness to the traditional Easter Egg Roll for the last 130 years or so. It essentially involves colored hard boiled eggs and big serving spoons which are used to roll these eggs. The event is held in the South Lawn of the White House. With different themes every year, this event also includes other amusement activities, sports, music shows among many other things.
2. Easter Thrillers, Norway
Norway celebrates Easter is an unusual way. Norwegians lose themselves in crime thrillers during Easter and even many new crime thrillers are written and released during Easter by captioning them as “Easter Thrillers” or “Paaskekrimmen.” The tradition is said to have started in 1923 when a crime novel was marketed and publicized by printing front page ads in newspapers. These ads were made to look like real news and confused people – they did not realize that it was in fact a publicity stunt and not real news.
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3. Death Dance, Verges
From midnight till early hours of the morning, the town of Verges in Spain observes a macabre dance of people dressed in frightening and eerie skeleton costumes carrying boxes of ashes and scythes. This is the traditional dance death or the “dansa de la mort” which is done mainly to reenact scenes from The Passion.
4. Smingus-Dyngus, Poland
Poland has a unique way of celebrating Easter. On this day, Polish boys pour buckets of water on people using squirt guns and other similar objects and try to drench them. Arguably, it is customary that if a girl gets completely drenched, she would get married within the year. This strange tradition dates back to 966 A.D. when the then prince of Poland, Mieszko was baptized on the day of Easter.
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