How to Celebrate Easter German Style

Easter isn’t celebrated all over the world and even in those countris that do, there are quite some variations and a range of traditions. Painting Easter eggs, having parades and having big family dinners are just a few. I have already shared some German and Swedish Easter traditions on Venga Vale Vamos, but you might want to attempt something else this year and make it look like Easter, too? Well, Easter German style certainly is a great way to go all out .

Easter German Stye Is like Christmas, Only Different

Step number one: Put out the vases that have been collecting dust and gather some fresh twigs and branches to arrange them beautifully on your counters and tables. If you cut and place forsythia twigs in water filled vases two to three days before easter, you will have them blossom just in time.

Next, we are getting out the old wooden Easter ornaments and hangers, which are basically like the wooden ones we have during Christmas, only with bunnies and eggs and more colourful than the usual December ski, angel and snowman combinations. Hang them on right away so that when the green leaves sprout, you won’t get tangled. Et voilà, even more colours!

The third step is to get out even more Easter bunnies and plastic eggs and to arrange them around your place to make the Easter bunny feel right at home. This could be Easter miniatures with little wooden bunnies doing things, such as painting eggs or walking with a basket, or fillable decoupage cardboard Easter eggs.

Some households have Easter pyramids additionally (I told you it’s like Christmas). And if you have a garden or even little patch of grass with a bush on it, you can put a bunch of plastic eggs on there as well. You’d be surprised to see this everywhere – not only rural areas but also towns and sometimes even cities.

Don’t forget the obligatory basket with green paper grass and colourful eggs inside. Those can be fake or boiled ones that are coloured afterwards. Speaking of colouring eggs, that is the ultimate must do for every imminent Easter celebration.

Paint it in Rainbow Colours

There are two ways we colour our eggs – and colourful they have to be. Obligatory option A is to hard boil your eggs and then put them in colouring baths. There are different variations and techniques, it could be an even colour or marble look. If you feel like it, you can paint or scratch patterns and pictures on them. Just keep in mind that they will be eaten before feasting time and all the pretty paintings will be gone.

Option B is to get a fresh egg and poke a tiny hole in its top and bottom. Then blow out the contents into a bowl. Sounds gross, but isn’t really (but it’s fun freaking out your international friends if you don’t give them a warning). You can later use the egg white and yellow for your baking, for instance.

What we need now is the empty shell. Since we love painting eggs for Easter that much, you can get easy painting sets with holders in every German supermarket for pretty cheap. Or you can just hold it in your hands and use those old tempura colours.

What you paint on them is completely up to you. It could be patterns, flowers, Easter motifs, proper paintings or anything abstract. There are really artsy eggs and egg artists out there. Some are even collected. So go crazy.

To complete the decorative Easter German style look, wrap a looped string around a small toothpick and stick it inside the top hole so as to hang it up. Then decorate your branches with the egg and repeat.

More Public German Easter Decoration

All of this decorative effort is just for your private enjoyment. If you want to show the world your Easter German master skills, you need to get going with your little front lawn patch or garden.

Fun fact: A German couple from Saalfeld had been decorating their easter tree with 10,000 individually decorated eggs each year up until 2015 (but sadly you won’t find them in the Guiness Book of World Records)!

You don’t have to copy them though when it comes to quantity. Also , many village fountains and entrances to town halls will receive wreaths decorated with ribbons and plastic eggs as well.

If you’ve got some trees, potted plants and other flower pots standing around your entrance door, you can also Bstick in some blossoming extra branches. This could be forsythia, pussy willow or birch. And again, why not add ribbons and some ornaments to it? And eggs. Always plastic eggs.

Tell me: How do you decorate for Easter or do you not do it at all?

Photo credit: Autumn Mott, sabkuchmilega, pentacs and FeeLoona (both found on pixabay).