Easter Traditons Vary Throughout The World

By: John Bailey

Posted: 3/21/08

Being a vegetarian on Easter is a raw deal. No Easter ham, no kielbasa, no sausage brioche, no clam dip, no Twinkies. It's all just no, no, no. And you never feel too good about eating that chocolate rabbit.

Of course, you can still have something resembling fun, especially if everyone volunteers you to be the Easter bunny, since all you eat is lettuce. But while you're bouncing around, people across the world are having more fun than you¬¬-and not just because they can eat meat. They're having fun because they live in other countries, where Easter celebrations are awesome.

Germany: Everything Is On Fire

Let's face it: everyone would be happier if they had more fire in their lives. And you know, according to the Australian Institute of Criminology, Germans steal about half as many cars per capita as Americans. They also celebrate Easter by lighting enormous wooden wheels on fire and rolling them down hills, "leaving a blazing trails stretching for several hundred metres," according to the official web site of the German Embassy in Ottawa. Coincidence? Surely not. You probably cannot describe a single Easter celebration with your family using the phrase "blazing, hundred-meter trail," and if you think about it, it probably would have made the egg hunt a lot more interesting. Instead of candy, all the eggs would have a little slip of paper that said "look out!"

Australia: Eating Precious

Endangered Species

Imagine Easter without bunnies. Hard, isn't it? Everything about Easter just screams "Bunny!" to us loutish Americans. For the Australians, it's no problem, because Australians are well known to have excellent imaginations. Also, in Australia, bunnies are terrible creatures that tear through the fresh, virgin soil, ruining entire crops of bandicoots and causing untold numbers of families to starve. So the Australians are understandably not too keen on the Easter bunny (true fact: they have an Anti-Rabbit Research Foundation). They have this other thing, though, called a "bilby," which unlike everything else in Australia will not kill you with its gaze, and is actually kind of cute-like a bunny with a long, ratty nose. And so chocolate bilbies have displaced the chocolate bunny as the crunchy creature of choice in Australian baskets. They are adorable and endangered, and author Jeni Bight has even written a story called "Burra Nimu, The Easter Bilby".

Czech Republic and Slovakia:

Spank You Very Much

We have a problem, these days. We don't respect tradition enough. Specifically, we don't respect the American staples of individual craftsmanship and beating people. The Czech and the Slovakians, see, they know what they're talking about. On the morning of Easter Monday (true fact: they call it "Dyngus Day"), young men take it upon themselves to construct handmade, ribboned whips called pomlázka, which they then use to spank women (not very hard, of course), and the women get to whip them back on Tuesday They also splash them with water, and sing carols while doing both of these things.

Norway: The Most

Thrilling Country ... Ever

Hold your breath: in Norway, they read books for Easter. And not just any books-mystery books. Apparently, mystery books are stories where something bad has happened, but nobody knows who did it! Then, people start dying, and everyone has to figure out the problem before it's too late. Sort of like Harry Potter, but without wands. They also play a lot of Yahtzee.

So this year, while you're sitting around with Aunt Edna and Uncle Carl, eating celery and watching the bunnies desecrate your village, don't despair: you know that someone, somewhere else in the world, is having more fun then you. They are spanking people and playing games with dice. They are reading mystery novels.

And if you still feel bad, think about the look on your cousin Willy's face when he opens up his Easter egg and reads: "It's too late."

Contact John Bailey at John.C.Bailey@UConn.edu