PRPG:

A Few Strange Easter Traditions

April 17, 2014

Not everyone celebrates with chocolate bunnies and hiding eggs. Here are a few Easter traditions from around the world.

Haux, France

Giant Easter Omelet in FranceEaster is a two-day event in several European countries. The residents of this French town celebrate “Easter Monday” by building a huge omelet for a thousand people. This task typically involves no less than 5,000 eggs. The event was supposedly inspired by a visit Napoleon and his army once made to Haux. The locals fed them omelets, thus sparking the ongoing tradition…or so the story goes.

Finland

Finnish kids spend their Easter Sundays roaming the streets in search of candy and, for them, the holiday is a lot like Halloween. Instead of costumes, they smear soot on their faces, wear scarves on their heads, and carry brooms. The tradition stems from an old Nordic legend that claims witches love to buzz around on their broomsticks between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

Hungary

Hungarians also have their own odd Easter Monday tradition. To celebrate what they call “Ducking Monday,” young men run around dumping buckets of water on young women before asking them for a kiss. This strange tradition, which the locals call “sprinkling,” is based on the old belief that water has a healing effect that encourages fertility. For obvious reasons, many of the country’s young bachelors now use small amounts of perfume instead.

Japan

Western holidays like Halloween and Christmas have become popular in Japan but Easter remains relatively obscure. Nevertheless, that hasn’t stopped many companies from organizing Easter-themed promotions in the spring and sometimes even in the summer, too. Tokyo Disneyland hosts an annual “Easter Wonderland” event that sometimes runs well into June. Back in 2011, Universal Pictures released Hop, a movie about the Easter Bunny’s son, in the not very Easter-ish month of August in Japanese cinemas.