Choose your Easter

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Macmillan Polska 2008 PHOTOCOPIABLE

Student’s Worksheet

First published online 06.03.08

Country A

People in this country celebrate Easter with a big family dinner on Easter Sunday they eat coloured eggs and a cake in the
shape of a lamb. Another tradition is to light fires on Easter Sunday evening, at sunset. Old Christmas trees are burned in
the fires and this symbols the end of winter and the beginning of spring. There is also a game which children play at Easter
time it's called Chocolate Kiss. Children eat special candy covered in chocolate and their faces are dirty with it, so they try
to kiss other players and make them dirty, too. The winner is the person who is the cleanest at the end of the game.

Country B

In this country, 'Happy Easter' is Glad Pask and the Easter week is called the Quiet Week. In the past, people in this country
believed that at Easter witches become more active and fly to a place called Blakulla (The Blue Mountain) to meet the devil
and do black magic. Now people decorate their houses with witches, chickens and eggs. Children dress up as witches and
go from house to house, asking for candy and leaving Easter letters in front of people's doors.

Country C

In this country, at Easter it is the end of the summer and the beginning of autumn. People use this time to have the last
barbeques in their gardens. Children play an Egg Hunt game on Saturday evening, their parents hide chocolate eggs in
the garden and on Sunday morning children wake up and run outside to find the eggs. The symbol of Easter is the rabbit,
but also the bilby a small local animal similar to a mouse and with very big ears. The favourite Easter game is the Egg-
knocking game. Each person takes one egg and uses it to hit somebody else's egg if your egg breaks, you are eliminated
from the game. The last person whose egg does not break is the winner.

Country D

In this country, Easter starts with cleaning and decorating the houses, cooking and painting eggs one of the traditional
ways is to paint the eggs white and draw red flowers on them. On Easter Monday men and boys visit all their relatives and
friends, while women stay at home to greet the guests. Men start their visits with funny Easter poems and sprinkle women
and girls with perfume or perfumed water. In return, women give them desserts or drinks and they all wish each other good
luck. A traditional Easter alcoholic drink in this country is apricot brandy.

Country E

The Easter holiday is usually quite long in this country and most people use it to go to the mountains, as one of the favourite
Easter activities is skiing. Because most people do not spend Easter at home, cooking is not a very important part of the
festival. There is, however a type of food connected with Easter, and this is marzipan people often don't buy it, but make it
themselves. Another interesting tradition is that people solve crime mysteries at Easter time. TV and radio stations produce
special programmes with crime stories, books called 'Easter-Thrillers' are published and you can even find murder stories
on milk cartons!