HAPPY EASTER

CRÈME EGG DAY IS HERE!
Since I am now face down in chocolate – I thought it best to give you all a lot to read!!!!

The Traditional Egg Gift: The first eggs given at Easter were birds eggs. These eggs were painted in bright colours to give them further meaning as a gift. As chocolate became more wide spread In the 20th Century, a chocolate version of the traditional painted egg was developed. The size of the chocolate egg has grown over the years and is now more likely egg to be the size of an ostrich egg rather than a small birds egg. Around 80 million chocolate eggs are eaten each year in Britain.

Easter Egg Hunt: Small chocolate eggs are hidden for the children to find on the traditional Easter Egg Hunt. It has been linked to the Easter Bunny, which only arrived in Britain relatively recently.

Pace Egging: Pace Eggs are hard boiled eggs with patterned shells, they are traditional in northern parts o local variants in the name, such as Paste Eggs. The name is derived from Pesach (Passover). The background colour is provided by onion skins, with designs created by leaves and flower. All kinds of fun are had with the hard-boiled decorated pace eggs.

Origins of Colouring Eggs at Easter: Decorating and colouring eggs for Easter was a common custom in England in the middle ages. Eggs were brightly coloured to mimic the new, fresh colours of spring. The practice of decorating even more famous by King Edward I of England who ordered 450 eggs to be goId-leaved and coloured for Easter gifts in 1290.

Egg rolling: Egg rolling is very popular in England and is an Easter Monday sport. Hard-boiled eggs are ro down a hill. Customs differ from place to place. The winner's egg may be the one that rolls the farthest, survives the most rolls, or is rolled between two pegs.

Egg Jarplng (Egg Tapping): Another activity that takes place on Easter Day is the playing of a game with the eggs known as "jarping", It's a bit like playing conkers, with players tapping their opponents' eggs until one breaks. The victor goes through to the next round and it's a process of elimination until there's only one good egg, the winner's, left. In Cumbria, it is traditional to have 'jarping*, except they call it ‘egg dumping'. There are strict rules surrounding the competitions, which take place in houses and pubs. Some larger egg dumps can take all day or evening, and quite a bit of money can change hands.

Easter cards: Easter cards arrived in Victorian England, when a stationer added a greeting to a drawing of a rabbit. The cards proved popular.

Special Food at Easter: After the lean months of winter and the fast weeks of Lent, food at Easter was always a special treat. Easter day, like Christmas day, is also associated with special food.

• Boiled eggs are traditionally served at breakfast, then Easter cards and gifts may be exchanged.
• Roast Iamb, which is the main dish at Jewish Passover, is the traditional meat for the main meal on Easter Day. It served with mint sauce and vegetables. The traditional pudding are custard tarts sprinkled with currants and flat Easter biscuits (sometimes called "Cakes” contain spices, currants and sometimes grated lemon rind).
• Simnel cake is baked for tea. Eleven balls of marzipan are placed around the top layer to represent the eleven true disciples (excluding Judas). Originally the simnel cake was a gift to mothers on Mothering Sunday in Mid Lent.

Easter in Germany: It Is the Easter bunny who brings Easter eggs to children, He hid in the garden, for the children to find them! It's a lot of fun,

What is Easter?
Easter is the time for holidays, festivals and a time for giving chocolate Easter eggs. But Easter means much more …

Easter is the oldest and the most important Christian Festival, the celebration of the death and coming to life again of Jesus Christ. For Christians, the dawn of Easter Sunday with its message of new life is the high point of the Christian year.

Where does the name "Easter" come from? Pagan traditions give us the English word "Easter" which comes from the word "Eostre". The Anglo-Saxon word for April was "Eostre-monath" (the month of openings). However, it should be remembered that Christians celebrated the resurrection of Christ long before the word "Easter" was used, and the word they used for the celebration was “Paschal” which is derived from and linked to the Jewish festival of Passover.
According to Bede, the English monastic historian, the English word Easter comes from the Anglo-Saxon name for the month of April, which was known as "Eostremonath" in the AngloSaxon tongue and since Pascha was most often celebrated in Eostremonath, the English Christians began calling it "Eastee”. Bedes also notes that the month was named after the Anglo-Saxon goddess Esostre. Rituals related to the goddess Eostre focus on new beginnings, symbolized by the Easter Egg, and fertility, which is symbolized by the hare (or Easter bunny).

Why do we have eggs at Easter? An Anglo-Saxon legend tells how the Saxon goddess Eostre found a wounded bird and transformed it into a hare, so that it could survive the Winter. The hare found it could lay eggs, so it decorated these each Spring and left them as an offering to the goddess. Eggs are a forbidden food during Lent, making them a welcome return to the menu on Easter Day. Eggs have been a symbol of continuing life and resurrection since pre-Christian Spring celebrations.
To the Pagans the egg's oval shape represents the eternal cycle of seasons. In their tradition, the egg’s yolk symbolizes the sun-god, and the egg-white and pale shell represents the maiden goddess: their sacred marraiage is said to have occurred at the Spring Equinox. Eggs have had a religious significance in many ancient civilizations; Egyptians buried eggs in their tombs as did the Greeks; A Roman proverb states, "All life comes from an egg". It's probably no surprise that Christ adopt the egg to symbolise the resurrection of Christ.

But which did come first – the chicken or the egg? An age old question!