It’s time to eat the chocolate bunny
I wrote this blog post before Easter, therefore I have no idea how I’m spending Easter in the North Country. This is how an Easter weekend looks in Belgium – or at least at my house.
Around nine in the morning on Sunday morning, I wake up. I do all the regular things I do. Since I’m part of the digital generation, I check my phone and my messages. Zero days to Easter is what my countdown calendar says. A happy feeling takes over my body. I just love Easter. I get up, and excited as a little kid, I run down where my sister waits for me. She holds a basket and my dad gives me one, too. My sister and I are young adults, but we do not care. We still love Easter egg-hunting, so we start running through the house, searching for those white and brown chocolate eggs. As a kid I was told that the easter church bells went to rome and when they returned they brought chocolate. Some stories might say that the Easter bunny brought them and hid them in the house. Fortunately, wisdom comes with the years, if you know what I mean. I see a white egg laying on a napkin near the television. I move subtly towards it, and before my sister could move, I grab the egg and place it in my basket. Oh, so much fun.
After a couple of minutes, we are done searching and our baskets are filled with chocolate eggs. My dad has his own basket so we do not need to share. I am entering chocolate heaven–see you later.
But before entering this heavenly place, I must have breakfast with my family. Every Easter we have breakfast as a family. The table is filled with sandwich breads shaped as bunnies, a chocolate bunny, small chocolate eggs, our big chocolate eggs, a hard boiled egg, and different kind of breads and spreads. ‘Do you want some hot chocolate?’ my dad asks. I nod, my sister is nodding, too. A glass of orange juice, all the good food, and an overdose on chocolate are part of my Easter morning.
When I was a kid, we used to have our house decorated for Easter. An Easter tree – a bunch of branches decorated with little eggs and Easter-themed decorations was part of my Easter. The house was filled with eggs, chickens and bunnies.
After eating our breakfast, we wait in line for the shower. When my parents prepare for their day, my sister and I lay on the sofa with way too much food in our stomachs. Easter is the worst if you do not want to gain a lot of weight, but today no one seems to care.
Four hours after eating breaking, the family gathers again at the table, this time for lunch. There is no typical easter menu so we just enjoy whatever we feel like eating. Since Sunday has been fries day for so long, there might be fries included. No one is really hungry after the big breakfast, but it seems we can always eat more. Our stomachs are bigger during Easter I guess, because a couple of hours after lunch we gather again. We absolutely love pie, so every reason to have pie is a good reason. Coffee is served and the pie is prepared. We again enjoy a shameless portion of sugar. For dinner, we eat more chocolate eggs with bread and butter (a perfect combination if you ask me) with whatever drink you like.
Belgium is a Christian country- mostly Catholic – but you wouldn’t be able to tell. Not a lot of people attend church anymore, but we do respect the religious events. Almost every Catholic holiday is a official holiday for Belgians. Every Easter Monday, we are all home to recover from our food overdose and maybe eat some more chocolate eggs. You can never have enough chocolate, right?
So with this little Easter story, I wish you all a very wonderful Easter with lots of chocolate.
With love, Melissa
