Hello Everyone!
Hope you all had a wonderful Easter holidays and a good first week back at school. I’m looking forward to hearing about how you celebrated Easter in Lucena/Spain and I thought I could share how I usually celebrate this holiday.
Scotland
Scotland is home to many different cultures and religions, for this reason, not everyone celebrates Easter; nonetheless, most people will take this time to spend it with their families. For those who do celebrate, they will do so with a typical Easter Sunday dinner, which consists of roast lamb, potatoes and garden peas, and cakes called Simnel cake (a fruitcake decorated with eleven marzipan balls to represent the eleven apostles, minus Judas) and hot cross buns (a spiced sweet bun usually with raisons).
Traditionally, families will also do an Easter Egg hunt which is mostly targeted to children but anyone can participate! During this hunt, Easter eggs are hidden around the house/garden/park and children need to find as many as possible to win. It is said that the eggs are hidden by the Easter Bunny who is a symbol of birth and fertility. Another tradition that is very popular in Scotland is the rolling of an egg down a hill. This activity symbolises the rolling away of the stone on Christ’s tomb.
Poland
Poland is a very religious country, for this reason, Easter is a very important holiday and there are many traditions around this time. Firstly, during Palm Sunday, families will go to church with dried pussy willows or colourful woven dried branches to get them blessed by the priest. There are even competitions for the tallest Easter palm: as of today, the record is 37.78m! (This is equivalent to 10 storey building!).
Poland is also known for painting Easter Eggs (also called pisanki in Polish), which is a very long tradition. Fun fact: Archaeologists have found decorated eggs that date back to even the 10th century! Nowadays, people often dye eggs different colours and use paint or a razor to scratch a design.
On Saturday, the day before Easter, families will traditional go to church for what is called the ‘blessing of the baskets’. Each family, prepares a small basket lined with a white cloth and filled with foods, each symbolising a different thing, for example: boiled eggs (symbolise rebirth and Christ’s Resurrection), sausage (symbol of God’s generosity), ham (symbol of great joy and abundance), salt and pepper (symbol of purification and durability), bread (represents the Bread of Life), cake, and a lamb made from sugar (hope of a good and sweet life).
The following day, families will gather round the table for a traditional Easter breakfast where they share the food from the basket, then go to church for Mass, and when they return they go back to the table to eat a traditional Easter dinner which consists of, for example: żurek (sour rye soup), biała kiełbasa (while sausage), boiled eggs, and an assortment of other foods and desserts. Of course, families will also play egg battles, where each member takes one egg and they knock the other’s eggs to see whose will crack; the one with the unbroken egg wins and can play another player.
Lastly, Easter Monday is also known as Śmigus-Dyngus or Wet Monday, as on this day people will pour water on each other as a sign of love and good luck! It is really fun but you have to be careful to wake up early so you are not woken up with water being poured on you!
As you can see, Easter is Scotland and Poland is celebrated slightly differently but in both cases it is a happy holiday filled with traditions, symbolism, and time spent with families.
See you all soon.
Until next time,
Klaudia
