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4.08.2012

Egg fights and other strange Easter traditions

They say the tradition of eggs and bunnies for Easter goes back to pagan rituals connected with the rite of spring. The story goes that the early Christian church usurped the solstace in order to bring more people into the faith. The same thing has been said about Christmas being set after the winter solstace so that the pagan rituals around the shortest day of the year would be overshadowed by the new Christian rituals.

Shoot to hundreds of years later and I think the plan backfired. St. Nicholas, candlelit trees, and gift giving have overshadowed the birth of Christ in the same way that chocolate bunnies, candies, and nests of eggs have taken the driver's seat at Easter. It seems unfortunate that egg hunts and Santa have taken over the signature names of the two most fundamentally important Christian holidays. I don't think the same can't be said for any other religion's holy days.

Kit and Doc have their first egg fights 
Besides a ham dinner, chocolate bunnies, and colored eggs, one other tradition we had in our family growing up was egg fights. I've never heard of any other family doing this and I'm not sure where it came from. Here's the deal: Each of two opponents holds a hardboiled colored egg with one end exposed. Then you aim it at the other guy's egg and try to crack his shell first. Depending on how many eggs you have and how many players, this can be quite an engaging game for the kids and you get a lot of egg salad into the bargain.


Whatever your traditions may be -- happy Easter to you.