▲In Sweden, children dress up as Easter witches (påskkärringar) and knock on neighbors doors for treats, much like North American Halloween.

▲An old Danish Easter tradition involves sending anonymous "fool’s letters," or Gækkebrev, with a rhyming riddle. The letter is cut out in the shape of a snowflake, and signed with dots corresponding to the number of letters in the sender’s name. If you guess who sent it, you get a chocolate egg. If not, you owe the sender a chocolate egg.

▲Easter has oddly become a time for Norwegians to read crime novels (Påskekrims). The tradition is said to have started in 1923, when a book publisher promoted a new crime novel on the front pages of newspapers. Having resembled the news, people didn't realize it was fiction.

▲In some French towns, notably Bessieres, people like to put eggs to real use on Easter—about 15,000 of them. A colossal omelet is crafted on Easter Monday, and more than 10,000 people are invited to join for lunch. This peculiar tradition, also present in Haux, apparently stemmed from Napoleon’s inclination for, and demand of, giant omelets for his army.

▲The Finnish traditionally believed that evil spirits roam free on the days before Easter, so children dress up as witches. Besides searching for chocolate eggs, another sweet tradition is eating Mämmi, a brown pudding made of rye flour and powdered malted rye, served with cream and sugar, which dates back to the 16th century.

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Instead of the Easter bunny, French children have Easter bells! According to Catholic teaching, no church bells can ring between Holy Thursday and the Easter Vigil. A legend later evolved that said church bells weren’t rung because they grew wings and flew to Rome to be blessed by the Pope, returning on Easter with chocolate and presents.

▲In the United States, widespread traditions include Easter parades, church services, Easter egg painting/hunting, and eating as many sweets as you can find. In Washington, D.C., the President hosts an annual Easter Egg Roll, dating back to the 19th century, on the White House lawn. Children roll a colored hard-boiled egg with a large serving spoon.

▲Florence celebrates a 350-year-old tradition called Scoppio del Carro, or “explosion of the cart,” for Easter. An elaborate wagon built in 1622 is loaded with fireworks and pulled in front of the Duomo, where the Archbishop then sends a dove-shaped rocket into the cart, setting off a spectacular firework display signaling good luck for the year ahead.

▲In addition to hiding eggs, Germans put them on display, hanging the decorated eggs on trees, known as "Osterbaum," which fill the streets with color and announce the arrival of spring. Additionally, German tradition says that during all Easter celebrations you can only eat green things.

▲In many cities of Spain and especially in Andalusia, religious brotherhoods parade through the streets carrying floats. They wear penitential robes with pointed tip hoods and masks (which look similar to America's Klu Klux Klan, but are not related).

▲In the town of Panicale, the big celebration happens the day after Easter. Locals gather for the annual ancient tradition of Ruzzola, a competition that involves hurling huge wheels of cheese in a course around town. The team to complete the course using the fewest number of throws wins, and gets to keep the cheese.

▲Even though Christians only make up 2.5% of India’s population, they still have elaborate Easter festivities in states like Goa, which celebrate with street theater, songs, and dances. One of the most traditional dishes is the Pesaha Appam: unleavened specialty bread served on the Passover night of Maundy Thursday. It's usually served with Paal, a coconut-based dip.

▲Australians have a strained relationship with bunnies, since they're considered pests to the land. So in 1991, the Rabbit-Free Australia Foundation started a campaign to replace the Easter Bunny with the Easter Bilby. Bilbies have big, soft ears like rabbits and long noses like mice, and they’re endangered.

▲Many communities in England have Easter performances of Morris dancing, a traditional folk dance dating back to the Middle Ages that involved men in white with bells on their ankles and sticks in their hands, dancing to drive away winter spirits.

▲Easter is a long affair in Brazil, filled with chocolate eggs, religious traditions like weaving crosses from palm branches, and decorating a long street in Ouro Preto with a carpet of brightly-colored flowers, sand, and sawdust.

▲The day before Easter, Polish families prepare a basket filled with eggs, sausage, bread, and other food, which is then taken to church to be blessed. The day after Easter, however, "Smigus Dyngus" takes over. Boys try to drench people with buckets of water and squirt guns. Legend has it that girls who get soaked will marry within the year.

▲The island of Corfu gets quite messy on Holy Saturday, as residents participate in the annual "Pot Throwing," which is exactly what it sounds like. People throw pots, pans, and other similar products out of their windows, which traditionally marks the beginning of spring by symbolizing new crops that will be gathered in new pots.

▲"Sprinkling" is a popular Hungarian Easter Monday tradition, in which boys playfully "sprinkle" perfume or water over a young woman’s head, supposedly in return for colored eggs or sweets. People used to believe that the tradition had a cleaning, healing, and fertility-inducing effect.

▲On Easter Monday, there’s a peculiar Czech tradition in which men playfully spank women with handmade whips made of willow and decorated with ribbons. The willow is the first tree to bloom in spring, so the branches are supposed to transfer the tree’s fertility to women.

▲For most Bermudians, Good Friday means church, flying homemade kites, and eating codfish cakes and hot cross buns. The tradition is said to have begun when a teacher from the British Army was trying to explain Christ’s ascension to Heaven to his Sunday school class. He then made a kite to illustrate the Ascension.

▲In addition to enjoying the egg-tapping battle, another Bulgarian tradition requires the oldest woman in the family to rub the faces of the children with the first hard-boiled red egg she has colored, symbolizing her wish for their health and strength. The egg is then kept in the house until next year, when it will be broken into to see its color (white means luck and health).

▲Holy Week in the epicenter of the Catholic Church is predictably an exciting and hugely crowded event. Each year, thousands of pilgrims flood St. Peter's Square before the evening Easter Vigil mass, awaiting the Pope's blessing from the church's balcony.

▲Dutch tradition involves indulging in an Easter loaf (a rich fruit bread with an almond paste filling) and lighting a huge bonfire, the biggest of which is usually in Espelo. In 2012, Espelo broke the world record for the highest bonfire at 45.98 m (150.85 ft).

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Though Voodoo is a different religion from Catholicism, it shares many days of celebration since slave owners were largely Catholic. Haiti’s Voodoo followers annually gather during Easter, all dressed in white, to take a ceremonial dip in a sacred pool in Souvenance, to sacrifice animals, and to dance themselves into a trance.

▲Predominantly in the province of Pampanga, Holy Week takes a particularly dark penitential tone as, during street processions, some devotees will self-flagellate and even have themselves crucified, all this as a way of sharing Christ’s pain or to ask for divine intervention. The tradition is over half a century old.

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Many Latin American countries participate in the burning of Judas. Residents make an effigy (or multiple) of Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus, and burn it in a central location. Sometimes people make the effigy explode with fireworks, and sometimes political figures take the place of Judas.

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England also hosts the annual World Jarping (egg-tapping) Championships, along with bottle-kicking contests, where for the last 200 years the villagers of Hallaton and Medbourne have kicked barrels of ale in hopes of winning the booze for themselves.

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By far the most entertaining Easter tradition in Romania is egg-tapping: a traditional game where two people tap hard-boiled eggs against each other's in an effort to break the opponent’s. The egg with the toughest shell wins, and the person who keeps an unbroken egg is said to enjoy the longest life.

▲Easter is an impressively widespread holiday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and for many it marks the end of Lent, traditionally a 40-day period of fasting and prayer. Because Christianity has expanded into so many vastly different places, countries have very unique interpretations of the festival, ranging from solemn penitence to bright explosions. Click through to see the myriad of ways Easter is celebrated around the world.

Unique Easter traditions around the world

From playful spanking to smashing pots

28/03/24 por StarsInsider

LIFESTYLE Culture

Easter is an impressively widespread holiday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and for many it marks the end of Lent, traditionally a 40-day period of fasting and prayer. Because Christianity has expanded into so many vastly different places, countries have very unique interpretations of the festival, ranging from solemn penitence to bright explosions. Click through to see the myriad of ways Easter is celebrated around the world.