BS: Easter Eggs query

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Eggs query
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 26 Mar 02 - 10:13 AM

LOL! I like the idea of throwing the eggs to hide 'em!
Yeah, I've had a look online but there's so much conjecture out there anyway...and besides, I love hearing peoples'personal stories, so thanks!

I had quite forgotten about the Easter Bunny. That was always more of a joke in our house rather than a "serious" myth like Santa. I can guess why rabbits are significant in springtime! *g*

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Eggs query
From: MMario
Date: 26 Mar 02 - 10:12 AM

We always had an Easter Egg hunt in our family - held on Easter day as a matter of fact; Eggs were dyed on the Saturday before Easter - or occasionally on Palm Sunday. (depended on what else was going on)

My sister for about 15 years held an easter egg hunt on the saturday before Easter. We would have up to 100 kids participating - the hunt covered several acres and took us the entire season of Lent to prepare.

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Eggs query
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 26 Mar 02 - 10:06 AM

You can probably research on the net and find all kinds of stories about the history and meaning of eggs. So I'll just relate a couple of personal stories.

I grew up dying real hard-boiled eggs usually a week (or maybe more) before Easter and then going to various organized Easter Egg Hunts, (Sunday School class, Girl Scouts, local neighborhood, etc.) Usually there were prizes for most eggs, least eggs, the golden egg, etc. When my kids were small and we lived in Alabama, we lived next door to a man who was head of the poultry farm at a university. He brought us 5 or 6 DOZEN small eggs (quail or some kind of exotic bird.) We were sick of hard boiled eggs. It was also the custom there to pickle the hard boiled eggs in beet juice and vinegar (after the hunt and hopefully before they were rotten).

Then of course on Easter morning the Easter Bunny (kinda like Santa Claus) fills the Easter baskets with candy that the kids set out the night before. That same bunny also hides their eggs (hard boiled or plastic filled with candy or chocolate). One Easter at our house the Easter Bunny overslept and my 6-year-old daughter came to my bedroom crying that the Easter Bunny forgot her. I then jumped out of bed, sent her in one direction, and THREW eggs all over the living room!

Then there was the time my daughter "proved" there was a Santa Claus because she "knew" there was an Easter Bunny and a Tooth Fairy. But that's another story.

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Eggs query
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 26 Mar 02 - 09:48 AM

Thanks jeffp. Yeah, I came across mention of the White House egg roll when I searched on Google. Nice tradition!

I realise the egg has all sorts of connotations with rebirth and spring and the Christian Resurrection, etc. I wonder how the hunting and finding of the eggs fits into the Christian story? Or if (like Easter itself) it comes from an older tradition and was (as many other things were) modified and given a new meaning and background to suit the Early Church?

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Eggs query
From: jeffp
Date: 26 Mar 02 - 09:42 AM

When I was growing up (in Maryland, US) we would dye hard-boiled eggs during the week before Easter. Or maybe it was Saturday, the day before Easter. Saturday night/Sunday morning my parents would hide the eggs all around the house, but mainly in the living room. My sister and I would search for them until we found them all, with my parents giving hints as necessary. Never hid chocolate eggs or rolled eggs. The White House hosts an Easter Egg Roll, though. It will be on Monday this year. Hmmmm..... April Fool's Day. Appropriate? You be the judge.

Hope this helps.

jeffp

Subject: Easter Eggs query
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 26 Mar 02 - 09:32 AM

I was talking to some friends about hiding and rolling Easter eggs. Back home (Norn Ireland) we always hid the chocolate Easter eggs on Easter Sunday then hunted round the garden for them, and then painted/dyed the real eggs on Easter Monday and rolled them down a hill (I found an earlier thread on this - apparently known as pace-egging).

Anyway, the people I talked to (one English, one Dutch, one Swedish) all looked at me as if I had two heads when I mentioned these practices. One of them conceded that they'd heard of real eggs being hidden and hunted, but they themselves didn't do this. How common a practice is it? I had a non-religious (irreligious?!) upbringing, but this was a custom we practised (without questioning or analysing it) because it was carrying on a tradition that my parents and their families had done (hey - it's the folk process!). I realise the egg-rolling is supposed to correspond to the rolling of the stone away from Jesus' tomb, but why the painting and why the hiding and hunting on Easter Sunday?

(On another note - for years we would gather lovely yellow whin blossom to dye our eggs. It wasn't 'til I was about 18 years old that we couldn't gather any that year, but when I expressed disappointment my dad informed me he'd been using yellow food colouring for years anyway as the whins had bugger all effect! Devastating...)