What is your favorite holiday? Why is it your favorite?

My favorite holiday is Easter, specifically the Orthodox Easter. Usually, it is celebrated 1 week after Catholic Easter, but due to the leap year, this year, we celebrate Easter on the 5th of May. This happens because the Greek Orthodox follow the Julian calendar for Easter, while for Christmas and other holidays, we follow the Gregorian calendar.

I like Eastern because we perform a lot of symbolic traditional customs during the Holy Week and Easter Day. These are following:

1. On Palm Sunday, the Lent fast is broken, and we consume fish and wine to commemorate Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem.

2. Following Thursday, we dye in red color the easter eggs. (But nowadays, out of tradition, many dye them in other colors and different prints.) The red color is symbolic of the blood Jesus shed for our sins. On Easter day, 2 people clink the end of their eggs against each other, and the person whose egg doesn’t crack is the winner. Also, the broken egg symbolizes Jesus Christ’s resurrection.

3. Then Good Friday, in every church you can find an epitaph, the symbolic funeral bier of Jesus. It is all over covered with flowers.

4. During this week, we also prepare the sweet easter bread we eat on Easter Sunday.

5. On Saturday, after the midnight service, we eat the traditional Magritsa. It is made from lamb offal and served as fricasse or soup. This soup officially ends the Great Lent of 40 days and prepares the stomach for the big festive meal that follows the next day.

5. Finally, on Easter, the main menu includes lamb or goat, traditionally prepared on a rotisserie spit. We used to eat lamb or goat because John The Baptist referred to Jesus as the Lamb of God.