Easter is a holiday season when Christians celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s a special day for Christians that helps them remember the sacrifice Jesus made by dying on the cross. The holiday begins with Lent—a 40-day period of fasting, prayer and sacrifice, then it ends with the Holy Week.
The holy week includes Holy Thursday, the celebration of the Last Supper Jesus had with his 12 apostles; Good Friday, the observation of his crucifixion; and Easter Sunday. In addition, there’s a final holiday on Easter Monday.
However, there are many bizarre Easter traditions that are non-Christian and even non-religious. The participants ignore the religious aspect even though they cannot trace the root of their traditions.
According to Time, they could be pagan. Many identify traditions such as the Easter egg or the Easter bunny as part of the Easter festivities. They play games such as egg hunting, egg rolling and egg decorating. The egg and bunny symbolise fertility and life in certain pagan traditions that pre-date Christianity.
The tradition of the egg and bunny are mostly practised in America. Meanwhile, there are several other bizarre Easter practices from around the world. Find them out below.
Top five bizarre Easter traditions from around the world
1. Poland butter lamb
In Poland, they celebrate with a large dinner like everyone else. But they add something a little bit extra: a big centrepiece. It’s a tradition to have a life-size butter lamb. And yes, it’s a lamb made from butter and handcrafted. It signifies the start of Spring for some reason. What’s even more bizarre is that they eat it. They gobble up every buttery bit of the butter lamp. Yummy-ish!
2. Cyprus fire
In Cyprus, it is all well and dandy as the eggs and candy go round. The children love it. Then here’s the twist! The teenagers engage in the bizarre part. It is a tradition for them to pick up scrap woods. Then at the end of the day, they make a bonfire out of their pile. The group of teens with the biggest fire wins. Isn’t that fun?
3. Finland fertility
Okay, this looks quite normal: birds in a bush. However, this doesn’t scream Easter, does it? For Finland, they get creative and watch the grass grow. That’s their own tradition. They watch it grow to signify the start of spring. And after it grows they get into the holiday season by allowing kids to take over. Children get to decorate it with painted eggs and paper bunnies to signify fertility.
4. Bermuda kite
Bermuda goes a long way off the candy and painted eggs. They engage in the religious aspect as well, and that’s good. The only catch is that they do this in a weird way. In Bermuda, they celebrate the ascension of Christ by flying a kite. They make the kite by designing and decorating it uniquely and could take weeks of work. They fly the kite with others, which results in a sky full of colourful kites to commemorate the holiday.
5. Denmark branches
Things just got weirder! In Denmark, they love Halloween so much they celebrate it twice, with costumes and candy all over again. The tradition is for children to dress up as witches, carry decorated willow-branches said to be blessings, and go from house to house. They get candy and also give the blessed branches to the homes of those they give.
What’s your bizarre Easter tradition? Share with us!