Sunday, April 16, 2006

Happy Easter (Joyeuses Pâques)


Probably like in other countries, French Christians have the tradition of Easter eggs (and not so much bunnies). On Easter morning parents hide chocolate eggs in the garden (or in the apartment in they live in big cities) and when the church bells ring (they still do, even in Paris) they let their kids hunt for the eggs. Why eggs? Simply because until "recently" Church law dictated that Christians must abstain from eating eggs (and meat) during the 40 days of fasting (Carême) that preceded Easter Sunday.

25 comments:

  1. Nice, thank you, happy Easter to you too Eric.

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  2. People look for eggs in the US, too, in fact if you hop on a plane right now, you might be able to participate to this one at the White House on Monday.

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  3. My son got to paint his first eggs today. We had such a great time eventhough the dye ended up everywhere including the sofa.....Can't wait until tomorrow:)

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  4. Who can doubt that it is possible to love one city above all others (i.e. in the same way that one can love one person above all others)? Only those who were not born in that city, or who never travelled to find it.

    I believe that each of us has a city within us - a city which calls us like a Siren: not to our doom, of course, but to our bliss. For me, that city is Paris.

    In your photos, I see her face, I hear her voice, I am brought into her presence.

    Merci, Eric.

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  5. Bonjour à tous!

    Joyeuses Pâques au monde ! ! !

    Avec beaucoup d'amour de moi,

    Arwen

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  6. Writer David Sedaris wrote about taking an adult French class in France when he had just moved there.

    During one of the lessons, there was some hilarious culture clashing on how to explain Easter traditions. Sedaris couldn't understand why Paris would fly bells in from Rome instead of having bunnies.

    I laughed so hard I cried when I read that story.

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  7. Pour la même raison, les œufs se retrouvent dans les pays catholiques (et orthodoxes) . Les lapins (les bunnies des anglo-saxons) seraient symbole de fécondité en cette période où la nature reprend!
    Joyeuses Pâques à tous.

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  8. Joyeuses Pâques Eric (très appétissant ces oeufs!)

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  9. Joyeuses Pâques! One custom that I am reluctantly taking part in this Easter is that a circle of our friends let us know yesterday that they are commemorating the death of my brother in February by placing an Easter lily in his honor in the sanctuary of the church we all used to attend before our move. Many christian congregations in the US place lilys in their sanctuaries on Easter.
    What a lovely photograph of gift eggs (some of the trim from the hat shop making them look so festive? ;^) ) Here in the US most schools take a week break in the spring near the Easter and Passover holidays. Usually we would go to visit family in the Mohave desert for the week, but this year our daughter went with a group of high school kids to work for the week in an impovrished area in Mexico. Since early childhood she had enjoyed dying hard boiled eggs bright colors and decorating them. This will be the first year I will have no picture of her with the colorful glasses of dye, plopping eggs into them--always a nice photograph. Someday I will collect them from each year since she was tiny to now and frame them in sequence.
    Eric, I hope your warm sunny weather is coming finally. Our tulips are in bloom, but a big storm came in, so we are gloomy for awhile longer. Your photo brightened my day!
    -Kim

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  10. Nice shot Eric. I love Easter candy!

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  11. Eric, this looks delicious. I'm not so sure I could wait for the church bells to ring to hunt these eggs!

    Do you have Easter songs that are played during the holiday as well? My favourite (besides a few hymns) is Here Comes Peter Cottontail.

    Also, what is the tradition for food in France for Easter? I think in the States we mostly eat Ham.

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  12. Happy Easter from Roquemaure Eric.

    I'm off to see if the Easter bunny has passed and left me my Easter egg!!

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  13. I ate half of my chocolate bunny already....
    LOL

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  14. Beautiful photo, Eric. My father used to paint beautiful Ukranian Easter eggs with beeswax and dyes. I would spend the day helping him, fascinated to watch the intricate designs develop in each layer of color. Joyeuses Paques a tous!!

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  15. Happy Easter, Joyeuses Pâques, everyone!

    I grew up in France in a very catholic family, and all Easter activities were focused around church services, nothing else (and definitely not chocolate eggs.) I don't go to church anymore now, so Easter is now a day like any other, pretty much, for me.

    I loved dying and decorating hard-boiled eggs with my daughter on Good Friday before she went to college. It was very fun, except that you got to eat hard-boiled eggs for an entire week after that!

    I prefer eating lamb, rather than ham, for Easter.

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  16. Interesting - I actually didn't know that part about the eggs. Shame on me... Happy Easter to you too!

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  17. Hi Eric - we have a park at the back of our house, my eldest calls it the secret park - which makes it such a fun venue for the easter bunny egg hunt...he collected 14 eggs this morning (should've been 15 but a dog somewhat comically carried one off before he could find it!. Great Fun.

    Q. how do you run your mailing list - is it easy enought to do?

    Happy Easter

    Dean - Brighton

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  18. Miam Miam :-)...joyeuses pâques Eric.

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  19. Fröhliche Ostern, Eric!
    Happy Easter, Eric! You run an iconic blog. It is always a pleasure to drop by and have a look.

    Mago

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  20. Today (Easter Monday) finds me contemplating not Christ’s death, but that of the patron saint of semiotics, Roland Barthes, who died as a result of a traffic accident twenty-six years ago (23 March, 1980).

    I think it was Susan Sontag who said that he was the kind of person who always had something to think and say about even the most trivial of objects, images or events. On suspects that these were the subjects he actually preferred to contemplate, if only because they afforded him the opportunity to rescue something overlooked, forgotten or abject from its invisibility.

    I often wonder what he was pondering during those last few seconds prior to the accident that took his life. It is sad to consider that this unknown - and unknowable - thought was the last to pass through his prolific and unique mind.

    If it is not too morbid a request, could we perhaps have a photo of the location where Barthes met his untimely end? Maybe, in seeing and sharing it, we might perform a modest resurrection of our own.

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  21. We were in Paris during Easter (along with millions of other tourists, or so it seemed) and I was surprised with how many Easter bunnies I saw in babies' arms. Somehow, I thought they were more American than French. Also, more stores seemed closed on Easter Monday than Easter Sunday. En tout cas, j'aime Paris. Vachement, carrément, à la folie!

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