Easter

happy Easter

Every year at Easter, Christianity worldwide celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. For many revelers, the actual meaning of Easter is no longer so present. It is primarily a family celebration. Spring is coming, there are gifts, something good to eat and the apartment is beautifully decorated. The children in particular enjoy the famous Easter egg hunt, the Easter gifts and the Easter stories that tell about the Easter bunny and the Easter fox. Easter eggs are painted and looked for, but also kicked, pushed and thrown - depending on regional customs and local tradition. The adults are looking forward to the Easter roast and a long weekend. A beautiful Easter decoration in the form of an Easter nest, Easter baskets and Easter candles is also part of it for many.

In some areas, people also go to Easter shooting, Easter riding or the Easter march. For believing Christians and passionate churchgoers, Easter is the most important and highest church celebration of the year. And they spend a correspondingly large amount of time during Easter in the church at the various celebrations. The highlight is the resurrection of the Lord on Easter Sunday. The importance of Easter surpasses all other Christian festivals and holidays. In the general church year, the celebration of the resurrection of the Son of God even precedes Christmas Eve and the Christmas holidays.

Scheduling and Liturgy of Easter

Easter takes place on a different date every year because it is a so-called movable holiday. The exact date depends on the lunar calendar. Easter Sunday is always the Sunday after the first full moon in spring. However, the time can vary, the date falls on March 22nd at the earliest and April 25th at the latest. The original Easter season begins on Easter Sunday and lasts 49 days until Pentecost, the festival commemorating the sending of the Holy Spirit of God upon Jesus' disciples after his death to manifest His everlasting presence. The Easter holidays are introduced to commemorate the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus with Ash Wednesday, the day after Shrove Tuesday. Ash Wednesday is always the 46th day before Easter Sunday. Today, Ash Wednesday is primarily used in many places to mark the end of the carnival season. For believing Christians, on the other hand, the 40-day period of Lent begins on this day, which commemorates the 40-year odyssey of the Israelites in the desert and Jesus' 40-day prayer and fasting period in the desert. The Easter fasting or penitential period ends after 40 days on Holy Saturday. The so-called Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter Sunday. The actual Easter holidays begin on Maundy Thursday in Holy Week. On this day, Christians commemorate Jesus' last meeting with his twelve apostles before his death - the Lord's Supper.
Good Friday follows, also known as Silent Friday, which opens the three-day Easter celebration. On the Friday before Easter, Christ commemorates the time of suffering and the violent death of Jesus at the hands of the Roman occupying power. The day of crucifixion is spent quietly and in asceticism. Like Holy Saturday, which serves to commemorate the rest of Jesus Christ. With Easter Sunday, the celebration to commemorate the resurrection of the Lord and his ascension, Easter finally reaches its climax.

Easter customs

Most people in this country associate Easter primarily with Easter eggs. Or rather, looking for Easter eggs. According to old traditions, the Easter Bunny hides them. And just as chocolate Santa Clauses swarm everywhere at Christmas time, chocolate bunnies are very popular at Easter. Like Christmas, Easter is primarily a festival for children. In kindergarten, at school and at home, the appropriate Easter decorations are made days and weeks in advance. Easter nests and Easter baskets made of bushes, wood, hay and cloth are filled with chocolate bunnies and eggs. But real chicken eggs are also used. They are either blown out or simply boiled and painted. The advantage of blown eggs is that while they are fragile, they are very light. So they are hung as colorfully painted decorative eggs in shrubs and bushes or on branches in vases. In some regions, Easter eggs are also used in even more original ways. During the so-called Easter Egg Push, children's eggs are rolled down the hill. This custom has been common for many centuries, especially in northern and eastern Germany. In the south of Germany people tend to meet up for Easter eggs. Depending on the region, people also talk about pecking, typing, dotting or kicking when players face each other with their hard-boiled eggs. A player hits the tip of their opponent's egg with their egg until the shell breaks. Whoever is left at the end wins.

Easter games and Easter rituals

Easter shooting is particularly common in East Germany. By firing special cannons - nowadays they are mostly cannon shots - the evil spirits are supposed to be driven away. The shooting serves to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus and loudly underscores the victory over death. In some parts of Germany, the resurrection of the Lord is celebrated in the form of an Easter ride. This predominantly Catholic custom leads the riders with their magnificently decorated horses from village to village. The Easter riding is a meeting of neighbors who celebrate a common Easter service before the beginning of this ritual. Christian Easter plays that scenically process the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are very popular. They are often presented by children at school festivals. The Easter plays, often extended to passion plays, have a long tradition. They have been part of the repertoire of Easter celebrations since the High Middle Ages. The Easter marches are a more modern custom. After the horrors of World War II and under the impression of the nuclear threat during the Cold War, peace activists and pacifists began to take to the streets at Easter in the early 1960s. In some cases, hundreds of thousands demonstrated for non-violence and against the armament of the superpowers in the form of nuclear weapons. And even today, in view of the Fukushima accident in 2011, the Easter marches are still very popular.

Easter decorations in our online shop

Easter is first and foremost a celebration of joy. And for most people, especially children, it is a lot of fun to decorate the apartment according to the occasion. In our online shop you will find numerous beautiful ceramics with which you can give your Easter decorations a very special shine. Let yourself be enchanted by our exquisite decorative bowls and decorative balls, decorative vases and candlesticks - and of course by our Easter eggs made of the finest ceramics! All of our products are traditionally handcrafted. Every single piece of ceramic is painted and decorated by master craftsmen. Hedwig Bollhagen stands for high-quality and timelessly elegant ceramic work both nationally and internationally. Convince yourself. Order some of our unique Easter eggs today. The small works of art are a real feast for the eyes and decorate every Easter nest and every Easter basket. We deliver quickly and safely directly to your home.