Introduction.
The period of Easter is a particularly joyous one in most parts of the Northern Hemisphere. This time of year usually marks the end of the dreary winter, with the budding of new flora, and emergence of fauna from their hibernation. Man is not left out of this sense of renewal. Men, women and children change their outdoor clothes, from the heavy suffocating wool to the lighter linen and cotton. Easter is that time of year when children stream out of the front door squealing, squalling and running round the garden. The more enterprising ones among them bring out their bicycles and pedal down the street, calling on their neighborhood friends to come out and play.
Preparation for Easter
One of the novel traditions of Easter in the West, apart from the religious ceremonies that attend this period, is the Easter egg Hunt. A few days before Eater day, there is a general cleaning out of both the home and the barn. Piles of disused furniture and equipment, used clothes and rags, are brought out to be sent to the incinerators. The house frontage and garden are given a face lift. Dead leaves flowers and twigs which had survived winter are raked, pilled up and burned. Inside the home, shuttered windows are opened to let in fresh air. The living room really comes alive. The floor is vacuumed clean, the chairs tables and other furniture given a shine and polish.
Special Meals for Easter
The kitchen takes on a life of its own. Special meals are usually prepared for Easter day. In most countries of Europe and North America a major component of any special Easter meal is the ubiquitous chicken egg. In traditional Christian homes, the previous forty days before Easter had been a period of deprivation and austerity in protein consumption. The period of Lent is usually one of fasting with the conspicuous absence of animal protein like beef in the meals served during the Lenten forty days. Maybe to make up for the shortfall in protein intake, while at the same time avoiding any food containing blood, the bloodless chicken egg comes in handy. All kinds of menus containing eggs are presented on the dining table.
Easter egg Hunts.
The Easter egg is a dyed or decorated egg, traditionally associated with Easter. The decorated Easter egg first started as a simple art of just painting a boiled chicken egg with red color. The preparation of the Easter egg has gone through a lot of metamorphoses to now include an elaborate process, which include embedding of sweets into egg shaped candy. Easter egg hunts have become a major part of Eater Monday celebrations in North America, Europe and some far-flung places like Australia and New Zealand. The British, who colonized these last two places as outposts of their now moribund empire, took their tradition along with them.
The Easter egg hunt is one such tradition. On Easter evening the lady of the house, prepares her brightly colored eggs a few days to Easter, or maybe just got them off the shelf in a grocery store. She then packages them in foil or other suitable wrappers. Off to the garden she goes to hide them in some shrubs or under her rose bushes, while her kids are asleep. The following morning the children of the house and their invited friends go in search of the precious eggs. The more you find, the more you eat or keep.
