28.3.07

Easter

It's still over a week away but you can't ignore Easter here. It's everywhere. Chocolate Easter bunnies of all sizes wrapped in beautiful wrappings are peeking out from every window. Scrawny little trees that haven't sprouted their leaves yet are adorned with colorful Easter eggs. Daffodils fill the streets and pots in every house and the trees are just starting to blossom.

Hippity Hoppity Easter's on Its Way.

When I was young my sister and I had an Easter album. We would listen for hours on end to the 10 or so Easter songs, driving my parents crazy, screeching along in our talentless voices. The best loved presents were often the noisiest. Last year we pulled that old album out and I could still remember every song, word for word. As a matter of fact, the whole family could. Still none of us can sing though. 'I'll buy you a marshmallow bunny instead.' 'Do the bunny hop. hop. hop. hop.'

I bought a Paas Easter egg dye kit when I was home and brought it back with me. I still love to dye Easter eggs. Nothing says Easter like your 5th egg salad sandwich because a dozen eggs wasn't enough for two girls to dye. It had to be at least 18. I always wondered whether the teal or hot pink veins on the broken eggs were really safe to eat.

The problem is it is hard to find plain white eggs here. They are brown (not good for dying) or white but cluttered up with stamps. On a side note, it still freaks me out that the eggs are sitting on a shelf in the store here with no refrigeration until you buy them. I still haven't gotten sick though.

Although finding dye-able eggs is difficult, it is very easy to find already dyed Easter eggs. They are stacked next to the regular eggs, covered in thick, darkly-colored goop, nowhere near as pretty as Paas eggs.

Easter always meant a special Easter outfit for church, complete with patent leather shoes and sometimes even a hat, or Easter bonnet. Mom and Dad dressed up too. One of my favorite pictures of my mother was taken one Easter in the mid 80s. She looked like a movie star!

Peeps, jelly beans and chocolate bunnies, a basket full of goodies from the Easter bunny was enough to get me through until Halloween. Now I try to avoid it all! Well, except the hard-boiled eggs.

Posted from Basel

6 comments:

Berlinbound said...

Have a good one ... It's all over the place here as well - but I must say I do like the holiday!

Peace ...

Christina | AmiExpat.com said...

Have fun dyeing eggs! We've already started eating our Easter candy!

BTW, the room temperature eggs are fine as long as they've never been refridgerated, but once eggs have been cooled, they need to stay that way. The room temp eggs also don't keep quite as long, but I like that, since I know I'm getting fresh eggs produced in the area!

Un-Swiss Miss said...

What baffles me is the onion skins people around here seem to prefer. I see bags of the stuff piled up everywhere. But what color do you get when you dye the eggs?

....

BROWN. Well, a different, gold-ish brown, but still! It seems like a lot of effort for not much effect. Give me Haas any day!

lobstah said...

Talentless voices!? I must strongly disagree with that ! ;P

Unknown said...

easter in switzerland is so much fun. I love looking at all of the eggs, yes and not refrigerated and all of the chocolate displays which are so incredible...

Un-Swiss Miss said...

To follow up: I asked my boyfriend's mother about the date stamps. She said they usually go away after you boil the eggs.