What are some of the specific Czech traditions, practices, and foods surrounding Good Friday and Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday? My wife joins me in Germany tomorrow (Saturday) and I want to help her celebrate the holiday in a manner she's accustomed to. Thanks for your help.
Actually it's celebrating the holiday too. Do a search on Easter traditions and you will find out about it all. We had this discussion last Easter.
You're correct, I was doing a search and sure enough...Birching...spanking the females with a birch or willow branch...but that's done on Easter Monday. Anything else?
You can read about the holiday and some of the traditions on our Czech Easter page on My Czech Republic.
Yep, been there, read that. I don't know, I guess I was hoping folks would share some of their personal memories. The little things expat Czechs miss. I mean, what will the wife think if I start chasing her around the house with a branch and demanding an egg...or throwing a bucket of water on her? Sure, that could be fun on several levels, but as I understand it, the girls really don't enjoy the Easter Monday rituals.
They may not "enjoy" the rituals per se, but they would be sorely offended if no one wanted to whip them!! :lol: The most...interesting....thing for me is being whipped by my middle school students as they make their rounds of the neighborhood...one of the disadvantages of living in the small town where you teach!!
Well, I have always thought that "throwing a bucket of COLD water" is womens counter strike against men in the easter afternoon... at least its the tradition in willage where we have a cottage..
I've heard a rumor that since it's a leap year, the girls get to whip the boys...any Czechs out there care to comment/confirm????? :twisted:
Well, in my region it was like this: girls were whipped in the morning, the boys got their "cold shower" in the afternoon. P.S. yes, a girl must be whipped otherwise she will not stay beautiful for a long time :wink:. Oooops; I missed a few years here in the US :!:
My 9th grade students confirmed today that girls can hit the boys with a wooden spoon on Monday....there was no specific prompting to get them to say that - I just said, "I heard things are a little different this year...." and they jumped in and said "yeah because it's a leap year the girls can hit the boys with a wooden spoon!"
So how was everyone's Easter? Mike, did you partake in the traditions? Jen, did your female students hit the boys with wooden spoons?
Only two of my students showed up - and one is pretty much the worst one I've got - I actually pretty much kicked him out of my English conversation lessons. So he came by and clearly was jazzed to be able to whip the teacher who'd been mean to him...not sure how that works on a psychological level, but needless to say, he wasn't gentle... Otherwise it was just gaggles of neighborhood kids - all sweet. The holiday is turning more and more into a Halloween kind of thing without the costumes - some of those kids had massive baskets of chocolates and eggs!
My family had ham, knedliky and sweet and sour cabbage. I also made easter ram cake. For the Americans I made double chocolate brownies.
"easter ram cake" although i have no idea what else i'd call it, i think the expression is just priceless
