The Easter Egg Battle

During my childhood, Easter was never one of my favorite holidays. The competition always beat me in every Easter egg hunt, the kids table never got to eat first at brunch, and the chocolate crosses we ate for dessert were bought the year before during post-Easter sales (not to mention I can't paint an egg to save my life). And before I knew what the holiday stood for, I used to think the whole day was solely dedicated to a creepily personified rabbit that hid things from helpless children.

But now that I understand the reason Christians celebrate Easter, I can appreciate many of my family's holiday traditions. For my final blog, I thought I would explain the symbolism behind two of our seemingly weird Easter practices.

Tradition #1: The Red Eggs

In most normal households— or at least how I picture most normal households— families gather round their kitchen table laughing together and painting their cute little eggs with various pastel colors. My house, however, usually only paints our eggs one color: red.

I know, nothing says "the holidays" like blood-red eggs.

But while having dozens of these monochrome eggs may seem boring and anti-holiday-like, there is much symbolism behind red egg cracking. Greeks paint their Easter eggs red to represent the blood of Christ, and the hard exterior of the egg is supposed to symbolize the sealed tomb. When we crack the eggs, the broken shell represents Christ's apparent resurrection from the dead. 

Basically, on Easter Day, the whole family gets together to crack eggs at dinner. After each person chooses the egg he/she feels has the strongest potential to win, two people go head-to-head in a full out egg-cracking battle; one person hits his opponent's egg from above, and the other hits from below. Only one of the battling eggs will end up cracking (this is the loser egg), and the winner gets to move on to the next person to fight again. This pattern continues around the whole table until the last un-cracked egg remains standing. Whoever owns this winning egg gets good luck for the year.

red Easter eggs ready to be cracked

*photo courtesy of Jen*

my sister and cousins dying eggs at our church

Tradition #2: The Cheese Pie
Contrary to the other savory pie I've talked about, spanikopita, this treat is made mostly of cheese. My family makes close to a hundred of these little pies every Easter season using my great-grandmother's "secret" recipe. For some reason, we only get to enjoy this Greek comfort food one time a year; and though this was the first Easter I wasn't home to help bake, I'm looking forward to going home this weekend and eating all the left overs. The tradition behind these pies deals with our 40-day fast throughout lent. Cheese pies are usually made on Holy Friday so they can be thoroughly enjoyed when the fast is broken on Easter Day.

my mom & yiayia next to one of this year's batches of cheese pies 

(photo quality is bad, but the pies are very good)

So, while Greeks celebrate Easter in a slightly peculiar way, the traditions we share every year are worth the annual wait. I guess the overall message from all of my posts is that yes, Greeks do life a little differently than most, but that's what makes the culture interesting. Each country's different customs make it unique, and though it pains me to say this, I admit that I, like all of my Greek relatives, am proud of my Greek heritage.