All Easter'd out

Easter is over, and the kids are getting ready to head back to school and kindergarten. It will be a relief to get back to ordinary time...

In the US most think of Easter as a one-day celebration; the devout may consider the 40 days of Lent as a part of the Eater observance. Here in Northrhine-Westfalia (the state, or Bundesland, in which we live), the Easter season begins really in November. On the 11th of November, St. Martin's Day, the Karneval season officially begins. It's also called the 'Fifth Season' here in Germany. It's mostly noted by the coronation of the king, queen, prince and princess of the Karneval. During the ensuing months, little takes place other than the occasional 'Sitzung', or sitting, which seems to be
an opportunity for people to attend a sort of dinner-theater featuring funny outfits, a lot of drinking, and many, many bad jokes (usually told in the local dialect). I know this because as time goes on, they are increasingly broadcast on TV.

Finally this season culminates in the actual Karneval celebration, on which I could write volumes, but will limit myself in this posting to describing it as Mardi Gras as organized by a people who take their partying as seriously as they take their work, and held outdoors regardless of the temperature.

Then Lent starts. Germany is an odd mix of secular and churchly, and it shows in this time. While in the kids' school (public) and kindergarten (Catholic) the story of Easter was often discussed, colored, crafted and otherwise instilled, outside of school (and church), in day-to-day life, I don't see much evidence of observance. By this is mostly mean a decrease in pastries in the bakeries and an increase in fish dishes advertised at restaurants. Hardly a wide swath of society by which to draw a conclusion, but I live a fairl

Come the end of Lent, the children generally attend an ecumenical service on the last day of school before vacation. Vacation starts the week before Easter and lasts 2 weeks. This allows the school to skip over a few holidays in this time, but means the vacation moves all over the calendar through the years, following Easter.

Good Friday and Easter Monday are holidays. 95% of businesses close on these days, including grocery stores, theaters and many, many restaurants. The Catholic services aren't significantly different than the American ones, other than the rather glaring difference of them being in German, although the churches I've been to integrate more music than many in the US.

One wonderful thing about a the German's attitude toward the two day holiday (Easter and Easter Monday) is that one has that much more time to see family over the holiday, and everyone is just as happy to see you on the second day as on the 'real' holiday. Christmas is the same way - the 25th and 26th are both 'Christmas'.

The Easter bunny makes an appearance here in Germany, too, but I can't really make generalizations about how much he brings here compared with the US, because it varies so much between families, just as in the US. However, unlike Santa Clause, the US isn't blamed for the Easter Bunny's creation. According the Die Sendung mit der Maus (The Program with the Mouse, the awkwardly named but brilliantly executed children's show I watch with the kids every week) the Easter Bunny has been around Germany since the 18th century, but not universally. In some areas they had the Easter Crane, Fox or Hen instead of the Rabbit.

But now that Easter's out of the way, Germany can start to focus on the main event of their REAL religion - the European soccer championship coming up this summer.