Easter Eggs and Brazil

In Brazil you probably won't find any giant Easter bunnies at the malls, but you will find aisles of giant chocolate Easter eggs hanging from special racks in big grocery stores.  They can cost from US$2 up to $100!  Fancy chocolate stores at malls will have the most expensive ones.  Some people make them at home to sell to friends or out of small shops.

You won't find any Easter egg hunts or Easter baskets or colored hard-boiled eggs either.  Brazil has its own traditions.  The mayor of our town gives out free fish so that poor families can eat fish on Good Friday.  Some boys and girls get a small chocolate egg from their teacher at school.  Many churches have retreats over the long weekend.  Greyson is at a retreat right now.  

When our boys were little we hid the big chocolate Easter eggs just like Grandma and Grandaddy  Beckner used to hide the Easter baskets when your Daddy and I were small.  We often took a photo of the boys with their Easter eggs.  Grandma and Grandaddy used to always take a picture of Wesley and me in our Easter outfits.  Boys and girls here don't get new clothes for Easter Sunday, but I always tried to have a new shirt for the boys when they were small, and often tried to get them all to hold still long enough for a photo.

One year we had our own Easter egg hunt with two other MK boys.  

In 2000 Granny Atha was in Brazil for Easter.  We got her a big egg, too.  She couldn't find hers!

This was at our house in Fortaleza.  Greyson was a newborn baby.  Look carefully and you can see the legs of the big Barney dinosaur that Dalton carried around with him everywhere he went that year.  This year William found his egg and then wouldn't sit down for the others to find theirs.  He found them all and we had to keep telling him to hush up.  Granny couldn't hear very well and she still couldn't find the last egg.  Eventually they were all found.

This year we just have one boy in the house.  Should I hid his egg or just put it on the table for when he gets back from his retreat?  Maybe I should have bought three eggs anyways - one for me, one for Uncle Byron, and one for Greyson!  Hmmm, maybe it's not too late!

Hope your Easter is sweet with lots of chocolate.  But let's not forget that Easter is NOT all about candy, clothes and rabbits.  It's the most important holiday of Christian history to remind us of the resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ!  Our holiday here is more low-key than the States and gives us an opportunity to pause and consider how important Easter really is.