Saturday, March 22, 2008

Eggless at Easter

We have no Easter eggs in the house - not a single one.

I don't know what schoolkids do nowadays, what with the drive to be both culturally sensitive and secular, but when I was school we made our own Easter eggs. They were, of course, made from hens eggs, not chocolate. We'd bring in a hardboiled egg from home, draw patterns on it and throw it into a bowl of dye. Then we'd retrieve the our egg, now cracked and internally covered in a web of coloured lines, and avoid eating it all day. By the time we got home to show if off to our respective parents, it'd be a sulfur bomb.

These days, of course, they're chocolate. Egg-shaped Easter confectionary is so ubiquitous that it's association with Easter is indelible. Yet, it's like the Baby Santa's Music Box DVD being full of images of penguins and polar bears rolicking in snow and ice.

Do staunch Christians avoid the egg theme, in protest at it's obvious origins as part of a fertility festival? Or do they buy the oval chocolates and think of it as reward for observing Lent?

But that's not why we don't have any Easter eggs - we're just trying to limit TLM's exposure to chocolate. Umm...plus I'm allergic to eggs, and anyway we aren't believers.

6 comments:

Ms Mac said...

For Christians, the egg at Easter is a symbol of new life. When I was growing up, we used to roll our (hardboiled and decorated by hand) eggs down a hill on Easter Sunday. It might be a Catholic thing, it might be just a Scottish Catholic thing but it was a symbol of the stone being rolled away from Jesus' tomb.

The Swiss are not so big on Chocolate eggs but chocolate bunnies fly off the shelves this time of year. Chocolate bunnies- yumm yumm!

Anonymous said...

Christians have never been worried about pagan origins in their festivals, the major Christian festivals all have pagan origins, and if there was a pagan festival that had not been subsumed into a Christian one, they'd make up a new Christian one to take care of it.

Lots of places do the eggs down a hill thing. Also some places do it with cheese. I think they are cheesemaking places (eg Derbyshire) but possibly not limited to that.

It's the bunnies I don't like. Since when is it OK to chew a bunny's ear off? Always felt weird with the bunnies.

Watson Woodworth said...

You have a drive to be secular in your country?
That has to be so nice.
I think a lot of Yankee mainstream christians introduce Santa as a stand-in for God but I don't really know where they fit the bunny distributing eggs from or how they reconcile it to their human (depending on where you are with the trinity) sacrifice.
But lots of 'em like to squeeze the kiddos into ridiculous Easter outfits and shoes that mangle child feet and have a bore-fest at church (second time in a year for some) before the chocolate, jelly beans and getting Easter grass everywhere.

Amanda said...

We are believers- believers in chocolate that is! I quite enjoyed having a chocolate hot cross bun on good Friday too. And above all I strongly believe in public holidays and time off from work- so Easter is ok with me. I do understand the wish to limit TLM's chocolate consumption though.

Violet said...

ms mac: hopefully you pick a new hill each year, or the unfound eggs would make the place a bit smelly, eh - a bit like that episode of Gilmore Girls...

cathi: cheese? Easter cheese? That's a new one.

nigel: it's not really a drive - well, to be culturally sensitive, yes. The secular schools thing has been around for donkeys years. What the heck is Easter grass?

mtnw: I'm a total public holiday fanatic - and I don't even have a job! TLM is a total believer in chocolate too. But that just means we have power over her (ha ha ha!)

Angela said...

I use the plastic eggs that you can fill with whatever you want.
I put some chocolate in some and money in the others. You know some pennys
He liked it.