Easter

[Jane]

What's Easter like at your place?  Is there an Easter in your family?  Is there a holiday?  What are your family / cultural / national traditions?
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We have a holiday!  Easter is a four day event (Good Friday and Easter Monday being holidays) with all shops being shut on Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  This sends people into panic buying on the Saturday (for some unknown reason) and on that morning the carparks and shops are like Christmas Eve.

Our family has chocolate eggs for the children (from Sunday onwards), no events in the family (no gathering or family dinners), and no church component to the weekend.  It's pretty casual for us.

I'm trying to think of anything that happens nationally on Easter weekend, but apart from the news coverage of the national road toll, I don't think there's anything.

Is it true that you don't have a four day weekend for Easter in America?

[emma]

Four day weekend here in the UK.

Shops open as normal on Friday and Saturday. Closed all day today, and yes, people were crazy in the supermarkets here too.  Shops are open tomorrow, but restricted hours (slightly more than normal sunday hours, but not their usual length).

Nothing big usually happens here - Easter and Passover normally coincide, so I get the chocolate afterwards (Dad says that's 'cos it's reduced in price then - spoken like a true Yorkshireman! )

[PastMember]

Easter is pretty much a one day holiday here in the states. Everything is still open on Friday and Monday. Quite a few places are open on Sunday too (I just got back from my waitressing job as a matter of fact).

Personally, I think schools should not be open on Monday. Just from the perspective of a college student I think it isn't nice that people have to rush back so they can make classes. And if you live far away it just makes it all the worse!

[Dana]

I agree, Anwen!  Actually, I could use a whole other week off for Easter Break.

My Easters are pretty laid back    Sometimes me and the fam go to church, and see my grandparents and aunt, uncle and cousins, but this year we all just kind of did our own thing.  We do tend to put on an epic movie, like Ben-Hur, Jesus of Nazareth, El Cid with Charlton Heston, etc, and eat chocolate.  What's Easter without chocolate, right?  :love5:

I hope everyone had a really nice day  

[Patrick]

We don't do anything.  I got some candy and a good dinner and that was about it.  But my family's never been big on holidays.

[PastMember]

Personally, I think schools should not be open on Monday. Just from the perspective of a college student I think it isn't nice that people have to rush back so they can make classes. And if you live far away it just makes it all the worse!

It depends on your college. Here in New York, CUNY is closed today and tomorrow (actually, the break began at 4pm on the 2nd), with classes resuming on Wednesday morning.

[Bree]

I was going to go out to the school and work on my homework in the lab, but hubby decided my stress level was too high so I stayed home and played Sid Meier's Pirates and answered coposts. :p

My family was never big on celebrating Easter and Mike's not big on celebrating Passover, so we sorta are a non-celebrating household now. I guess we combine to fail to celebrate two holidays. :p

[Eimi]

Easter was always an important holiday for my family.  We always went all out - Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter morning (even Passover sometimes).  Course it's harder here to celebrate, since its not even on the calendars.  I only know its Easter when someone tells me.  But my first year here my South African friend and I climbed the mountain behind out apartment building to watch the sunrise and then went to church and lunch with our Australian friend.  That was a nice way to celebrate

[Vix]

My Easter celebration was fairly quiet. My housemate and her daughter are away for the weekend. I went to church, had to teach a SS lesson for adults, and then off to visit family. My parents' house is an hour and a half from here, which had my knee protesting a bit, but my brother and SIL and my two nieces with their spouses were there. My sister and my own children were unable to join us but it was still a nice family gathering.

[Paula]

It's a four day holiday here, with everything closed for friday and sunday. Shops are normally open on saturnay and some small groceries are limitedly open on monday. There's the traditional Easter foods: Mutton, mämmi, boiled eggs and chocolate eggs of course!
Children decorate willow sprigs and go to "Virpomaan" where they give the decorated sprig and receive candies (usually choclade eggs). In some parts of Finland they burn bonfires know as vainovalkea to drive away evil spirits and in other parts make loud noises for same purpose.

Virvon varvon tuoreeks terveeks, tulevaks vuodeks. Sulle vitsa, mulle palkka.