The Bunny makes Easter in Canada special

Mar 20, 2008

FOR most people in Uganda, Easter marks a deeply religious time, lent completes, fasting comes to an end and families celebrate. In North America, there isn’t as much focus on religion. Instead, children are eagerly anticipating the arrival of the Easter Bunny.<br>

By Angela Hill

FOR most people in Uganda, Easter marks a deeply religious time, lent completes, fasting comes to an end and families celebrate. In North America, there isn’t as much focus on religion. Instead, children are eagerly anticipating the arrival of the Easter Bunny.

With songs such as Here Comes Peter Cottontail, North American children await the arrival of the chocolate treats that the bunny brings. The marketing and advertising of the major chocolate corporation Cadbury revolves around a clucking, egg laying bunny rabbit.

As strange as it sounds, most people associate Easter with this rabbit.
Easter comes with the emergence of spring. This means the snow has melted, grass is becoming green again, flowers in pinks and yellows bloom, and chicks and baby rabbits are born.

The holiday spirit is based around these things. Young girls are dressed in pastel colours and children receive rabbits or chicks as pets.

Unlike many children, my brother and I understood the religious meaning behind Easter and attended church. We preferred the upbeat service with the hymn Christ The Lord Is Risen Today to the sad Good Friday Services.

My family would dress in our nicest clothes – I would get to wear a sun dress that had been in the back of my closet all winter.

But my brother and I would sit fidgeting, waiting impatiently to head outside in the bright sun.

Upon our arrival home, we would help our mom in the kitchen while dad disappeared. About half an hour later, my father would reappear, saying the Bunny had come. With our Easter baskets decorated with ribbon, we would race outside to look for what had been left for us.

The ‘Easter Egg Hunt’ is a huge part of Easter in North America. We would find coloured jelly beans, chocolate in the shape of eggs and white chocolate bunny rabbits. There would be enough candy to last us a week or more.

After eating enough of the chocolate eggs, we would make our own Easter eggs. A dozen eggs were hard boiled and dyes prepared. Then the eggs are drawn on with a wax crayon and stained different colours.

Decorations also included stickers or colourful wrappers. The eggs were used as centrepieces for the table at dinner.
Like in Uganda, my family gathers on Easter Sunday for a huge meal. Traditional for my family, with its eastern European heritage, was ham.

We would always have Irish potatoes cooked in a creamy sauce, fresh vegetables including sweet corn, carrots and salad. Sometimes we would have turkey.

Leftovers from the ham always go to my grandmother who would turn them into pea soup and pizzas. Easter is also the only time of year I get one of my favourite foods, hot crossed buns.

I know Easter is around the corner when the fruit buns with their icing crosses hit the shelves at the local supermarket. The buns were initially created to represent Good Friday.

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