How do you celebrate Easter?

When I was a kid, we searched for our Easter baskets that were usually hidden behind objects in the living area. In the basket was the usualy chocolate Easter Bunny, two colored hard-boiled eggs, a yellow marshmellow peepy, and lots of jelly beans. In the afternoon, there was an Easter Egg hunt and we would race to get the most.
In all these years, my own kids, regardless of age, expect an Easter basket. Where I live, I just can't find jelly beans. That was a staple. Even President Reagan had a bowl of jelly beans on his desk. On the other hand, perhaps jelly beans are mind altering drugs.

I live in Greece so we celebrate the Greek Orthodox Easter.

We have a candle mass on Black Friday, around the village. The Greeks go on a weeks fast so on the Saturday night at 12 Midnight, they come home to scoff a soup made from the inside of the lamb.

The lamb then gets cooked on a spit, head and all, for Sunday's dinner.

Monday see a parade of bands, flags and priests walking around the village.

I love Easter here. I wouldn't want to be any where else.

To all those celebrating Easter this weekend, may I wish you a happy one and pray you don't get drunk on chocolate.

Karina,
yes, I remember Easter in Greece. I lived in Ekali - outside of Athens. We always enjoyed learning and participating in the culture of where we lived. I must admit I am not too fond of lamb.

I live in Mexico where Easter is celebrated by a combination of elaborate, surreal rituals and mass drunkeness.

"Semana Santa" the Holy Week between Palm Sunday and Easter is THE HOLIDAYS in MEXICO, like Christmas/New Years in the States. Instead of over the river and through the snow to Granny's everybody scoops up the whole fam damily and heads for the beach.

Where they spend a week glutting in seafood restaurants, buying stupid seashell religious trinkets, ogling Spring Break college girls, and getting drunk. There are restaurants that get built on beaches every year, run for a week, and are then abandoned. By the end of the week, the beaches are totally trashed.

So basically, since I live at the beach, I celebrate Easter by hiding out from these maniac hicks from hell. :-)

Abe you have only to ask and you shall receive (it being Easter and all that). www.jellybelly.com is the official site for their beans, which my kids swear are the best ever, and they ship! Growing up we always made a lot of coloured eggs, and I did the same with my kids when they were younger, although neither of them were big egg sandwhich eaters, so we made the switch to chocolate. Easter means some reflection time (in a spiritual sense - there about 80% of the people here who are Christians, so the churches are filled, the dresses and suit pants neatly pressed) and a big family dinner (or two when you are trying to balance different sides of the family), and then since it is normally too cold for outside egg hunts, sometimes there would be one in the house. This year we have a little snow and wind so it would be OK for an outdoor hunt provided everyone wraps up...but the footprints would make it hard to actually hide anything! Now that my kids are grown and the family riddled with diabetics I buy my girls a new spring blouse or shoes instead of a lot of chocolate, although there are usually a couple of eggs in there too.

Pam,
I immediately clicked on the jelly bean site and then selected the country "Germany." Sorry to say, they just aren't jelly beans.
I guess I'll have my daughter send me some from Virginia or I'll bring a supply back with me on my next trip.

But thanks for your thoughtfulness. Guess I'll just have to "suffer" with chocolate. Don't tell Shelagh though.

Jelly beans are the best part.


Except those little marshmellow chickens you can bite the heads off of.

Lin,
Those little marshmellow chickens were the little "peepies" I referred to. I wonder how they'd taste toasted?

You can't keep anything from me!



How's that for a gourmet basket of jelly beans?

http://www.amazon.com/Jelly-Belly-Gourmet-Bean-Basket/dp/B000NM4H86

You can spend soooooo much money here:

http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&me=AXNPOU7FJ3CQ1

Tomorrow I will be opening my Easter egg from the Chocolate Tasting Club:

http://www.chocs.co.uk/

I'm not a member but my brother George is -- and he loves me! My dad is George and he loves me too (sometimes!) so I'm not short of a George or two!

Shelagh,
I think you have built-in radar.
Thanks for the information, but I was trying to find a source in Europe for jelly beans. Now chocolate is no problem. I saw how you slipped that website in also.

Okay:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ENGLISH-JELLY-BEANS.--All-time-favourites--200-grams_W0QQitemZ270221198040QQcmdZViewItem

or Chocolate Buttons sell jelly beans!

http://www.chocolatebuttons.co.uk/erol.html#17234X0

Quote :

Delivery International

Only orders under 1500g (1.5kg) will be sent via Royal Mail Airmail (restrictions set by Royal Mail).
All orders over 1500g will be sent via International Courier - All parcels will require a signature on delivery.
If you wish to order over 1500g but not pay courier prices for delivery we suggest you make multiple orders. Please note multiple orders will be sent separately and we cannot guarantee they will arrive together.

We do not guarantee delivery times however Royal Mail guidelines for Airmail deliveries to:
Europe is normally 3/4 working days.
Rest of the world normally 5/10 working days.

Cost for deliveries for individual countries can be seen at the check out prior to placing your order.

I just stay home and treat it like I would any other day.

Abe if none of that works just let me know. I can ship them to you from here...it'd be a shame not to fuel your addiction and have you develop writer's block or something. Just one way that we writer's can support one another in our eating endeavours.

There are holidays that speak family, and Easter is one of them. Together we remember and celebrate why Easter is such an amazing day of hope. We enjoy a meal together and then allow the little folks to scamper around finding hidden goodies.

Nellotie Porter Chastain

It will be low-key here. I'll pick up my mom and we'll celebrate and have dinner.

We used to do the whole hide eggs thing when I was little. I never did understand why a bunny delivered eggs. Hm....

Always, the dogs would find at least one or two eggs and eat them, shell and all. Which, of course, led to some pretty powerful sulfurous results later on.

Which leads me to yet another question...why do brightly colored eggs taste better than plain old boiled eggs?

Thanks Shelagh, I bookmarked the website.
And Pam, I'm flabbergasted that you would offer to send me jelly beans. (I knew I would have a use for that word one day).
Your offer is appreciated. If I am unable to acquire them via the website Shelagh gave me, I'll give you a gingle.

Happy Jelly beanless Easter

Well, so far I've been working on the computer while waiting for Steve to get ready so we can go to church. Then, we'll probably go out to eat somewhere. Happy Easter, everyone!

Abe, I'd be happy to help! In your honour I even ate one today!
Rhett, brightly coloured eggs taste better because, like a shiny jelly bean, they have the presentation nailed down. Colour (using the Canadian / English spelling) or color (US) appeals to the senses and makes it all taste better.
Although I have to share one little tidbit...I bought my girls an egg colouring kit one year that made "sparling" coloured eggs. The sparkles stuck to the hardboiled egg and no amount of rinsing would get rid of them. It was weird eating egg salad with sparkles mixed in it!
Happy Easter Everybody!

I think all the really good jelly beans here in the states have been confiscated by the food police, and the new recipes don't have the same flavor they used to?. I don't eat them, but Al is a jelly bean fanatic, and we can't seem to find any that are to his liking. Perhaps his childhood memories have colored his taste buds?

We have no little ones here, or even close enough to visit, so Easter seems to have lost it's fun side. In fact we had meatloaf for dinner today (at Al's request, or I would have made ham). But I did find some jelly beans and chocolate bunnies for Al--he is a chocolate fiend! Anyhow, he's happy, and I didn't have a lot of work to do.

Ah Zada I know what you mean about it being different without young kids around. It is certainly different now that my kids are older, although I did get my 19 year old a copy of The Bee Movie, which was a riot. Long live silliness in chocolate (especially with jelly beans in short supply)!