Easter Games with Easter Eggs
By: Tippy & Alfred
Egg games are not always played the same way from country to
country, but many countries have traditional games that are
play with eggs at Easter. It is likely that many of these
games once had a religious or symbolic meaning, but most now
are simply fun holiday traditions.
In England children go door to door asking for eggs or meat
during the last four days of Lent and if they are not given
any, broken crockery is thrown at the offender's door. This
is called Lent-Crocking.
Another custom celebrated during the Easter time in England
is Egg Shackling, where the players hold a hard-boiled egg
in their hand, trying to use it to crack the eggs of others
while keeping their own egg intact. The winner of each round
gets to keep or eat the losing egg. The game is played until
only one egg remains relatively whole. The owner of that egg
receives a prize.
Easter Egg Hunts involve children first boiling, dyeing and
decorating eggs for the parents to hide for them to find on
Easter Sunday morning. In modern days, sometimes plastic
eggs with candy inside are used for the children to get a
sweet treat on this holiday.
Easter Egg-rolling or Egg Roll is a popular Easter game in
Europe and the United States and on the White House lawn
every Monday after Easter, an Egg Roll is held for parents
and children. Children line up with each one taking a lane
parallel to the others. When the race starts the children
use wooden spoons that they are given to push Easter eggs
down the lane. The winner is the child who gets their egg
unbroken to the end of the lane first.
This custom was begun either by Dolly Madison, the wife of
then President Madison, or by the wife of President Hayes,
First Lady Lucy Webb Hayes, depending on which historical
account you choose. The original site was on the grounds of
the United States Capitol, but it was stopped by Congress on
a particularly eventful Egg roll of 1876 and was moved to
the White House from then on. When President Franklin D.
Roosevelt became president this tradition was abandoned to
be later revived by First Lady Mamie Eisenhower. She allowed
African American children to be involved for the first time.
This is quite an event today, with people dressing up as
Easter bunnies and dignitaries giving speeches - an all-out
festival.
Egg races usually involve tablespoons and raw eggs. The goal
is to hold the handle of the spoon in your mouth and balance
the egg in the mouth part of the spoon. Then run as fast as
you can to the finish line without breaking your egg. Good
luck!
Egg-cracking or egg crackling is a game involving raw eggs
again. A person chooses an egg by tapping it against their
eye tooth to make sure it is sound. Then people take turns
trying to break one another's eggs. Once you break someone's
egg they are to turn it upside down and you are to try to
break the other side. If you successfully break both sides
of someone's egg you win the game.
Another game is played in Greece where an egg is suspended
from the ceiling with string and people take turns knocking
the egg with their heads and try to catch it in their
mouths.
Egg-tapping or egg tapping is much like marbles except the
object is to break someone else's egg. The egg that is less
broken wins. There is speculated to be some symbology here.
Some say this game represents the stone being rolled away
from Jesus tomb while others believe that this is a symbol
of the rabbit emerging from its burrow and other believe it
is Jesus emerging from his tomb on Easter Sunday.
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All About The Holidays
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