#228: How Is Easter Celebrated? UK, US & Australian Traditions

In today’s podcast we talk all about Easter traditions and how this festival is celebrated in the US, the UK, and Australia. Easter is originally a religious tradition, but nowadays a lot of people see it as a family celebration where you get to share delicious Easter chocolate eggs with your loved ones. So, we talk a little bit about both these sides of Easter tradition.

Words You’ll Learn:

  • Choccy
  • Nibble
  • Flower buds/blossoms
  • Spring into spring
  • Bank holiday / Public holiday
  • Barbeque / Barbie
  • Lent
  • Give something up
  • Fast
  • Shrove Tuesday / Fat Tuesday
  • Ash Wednesday
  • Moreish (UK)

Quick Definitions:

  • Dazzling: very impressive and attractive.
  • “Maybe he’s catching up on the old episodes”: If you catch up on old episodes, you listen to the ones you haven’t listened to until now. 
  • Feasting: a feast is a large meal where a lot of people celebrate a special occasion. Feasting is the name of the activity.
  • Passover: a Jewish holiday that occurs in the spring on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan.
  • Spring break: vacation period in early spring (season between fall and summer).
  • “People will head down to Florida”: go down; travel to.
  • Soda/Fizzy drink: a drink like Coca Cola or Sprite.
  • Sneak (away/into, etc): to go somewhere secretly and quietly in order to avoid being seen or heard.
  • “Moses was wandering in the desert for 40 years”: to walk slowly across or around an area, usually without a clear direction or purpose.
  • Commonplace: common, usual, not special.
  • “It might be challenging to get the Easter eggs over there in one piece: whole, unbroken. 
  • Dye: to give something a different color using a dye (substance you use to change the color of your clothes, hair etc).
  • Eggs would go bad unfortunately“: to no longer be fresh enough to eat or drink.  
  • Fill us in on the details”: to provide someone with additional facts , details , etc. about something.  
  • Dip: to put something into a liquid and lift it out again.
  • Crack an egg: if you crack an egg, you break it slightly so you can extract the liquid in a controlled way.
  • Humongous egg“: huge, gigantic.
  • Godfather/Godmother: someone who promises at a baptism ceremony to help a child, and to teach him or her Christian values.
  • Masterpiece: a work of art, a piece of writing or music etc that is of very high quality or that is the best that a particular artist, writer etc., has produced .
  • Put someone on the spot: if you put someone on the spot, you cause them embarrassment or difficulty by forcing them at that moment to answer a difficult question or make an important decision. 
  • I have a bit of a sweet tooth“: a great liking for sweet-tasting foods.
  • I can eat six in one sitting“: during one limited period of time, without stopping.

Kickass Quote

“It’s spring again. I can hear the birds sing again. See the flower start to bud. See young people fall in love.” – Lou Rawls

Links

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  • Andrew says:

    Yea, in Ukraine Easter is also a more important festival than Christmas. And yeah, nowadays people dye eggs into different colors, but in my family we prefer keep dyeing eggs in dark-red color, by the way, using a natural dye for that. All you need is to boil eggs in water with onion skins in it (a lot of husks, actually) and, as a result, you have beautifully dyed eggs which are chemical free and totally safe to eat. I also recommend using homemade eggs for this.

  • Amaya_OSA says:

    The meaning of Ash Wednesday is the temporary condition of human being. This day you can receive the ash on your forehead as a sign of that while the priest utters either one sentence for awareness of this condition (life is a gift coming from God and after this temporary life it will come back to Him being transformed by resurrection) or for need of conversion while living (walking this pilgrimage towards Him). Ash Wednesday starts the forty days of Lent and we walk leaded by the liturgy that is memory and celebration of the mysteries of Jesus, alive among us, finishing into the Triduum and having fifty days of Easter. That celebration is the most important one for Christians. Its meaning is the belief on resurrection. The cross of ash on the forehead means the way of living according this belief: true love is giving up your own life for others as Jesus did. Therefore, the cross is sign of dying out of love, but also eternal life, the way to be born into a new life.