Easter customs in the UK/Osterbräuche in England

From Süddeutsche Zeitung:

Kätzchen-Tätschler in Großbritannien

In Großbritannien berühren sich die Menschen gegenseitig mit gesammelten Weidenkätzchen, das soll Glück für das nächste Jahr bringen.

‘(At Easter) In Great Britain, people touch each other with pussy willow branches to bring luck for the coming year.’ (Kätzchen: catkins)

Highly mysterious.

It also says, apparently correctly, that in Australia, chocolate bunnies are sometimes replaced by chocolate bilbies – the bilby is a rabbit-sized marsupial which was a victim of the plague of rabbits. See the At the Elephant blog. Mind you, the chocolate rabbit is more of a German thing. I have heard of people in Upminster buying chocolate rabbits at Aldi, though.

Here’s another curiosity from a site in global English:

As a part of Easter tradition, there is a trend among British people to eat yummy hams, in order to commemorate the Easter Sunday.

Surely it takes more than three days to make a ham?

The same site refers to unisex Easter bonnets:

For offering prayers in the church, men and women dress up in their special outfits and as a part of their wardrobe, colorful Easter bonnets embellished with flowers is like a must.

17 thoughts on “Easter customs in the UK/Osterbräuche in England

    • Yes, I saw your entry on Apotheken. I bet they all have it. It’s in a small yellow box marked Luxusseife and is by Phoenix AG, Mannheim!

  1. The oddest thing I ever got was recently: a plastic citrus peeler shaped like a snail. I presume the message is eat more oranges so you don’t get sick, but we never peel them anyway, only juice them. And why a snail?

  2. XD
    Really? I can’t believe how ‘creative’ drug store owners may be :)
    In Chile all you get is a ticket for a discount in a product that you certainly aren’t going to buy.

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  4. I only get packets of paper tissues.
    But when I buy groceries from the “Kaisers” supermarket, the long ribbon of paper that comes out of the check-out till includes with a voucher for a skydiving trip in tandem with an instructor.
    No wonder the waste paper industry is thriving!

    • Haha. I could ask one of the many German legal bloggers this. But even if it would be OK, there is a risk that a German lawyer would sue and you’d finish up out of pocket to put an end to it.

  5. Now I’m really confused. I consider myself a hobby blogger, because I just write about what interests me privately. I don’t see myself as a commercial blogger. Am I wrong?

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