easter resurgence

i know that easter was long, long ago, but as i said in my previous post, london & college clogged up my schedule this month. so this is going to be a short post about easter traditions.


ultimate alice in wonderland shot courtesy mah fathur

easter is a holiday almost as repetitious as christmas in its traditions at my house. the order in which we carry out each tradition changes slightly each year, but not significantly. we go to the 11:00 church service & we hunt for eggs. we count the eggs, we eat their treeeeeeeeats. this year, my brother & i also taught sunday school @ church. alongside fourteen second & third graders, i looked about five in my easter ensemble.


(photo: me winning the award for dumbest pose ever) i had gotten out several obnoxiously floral/springy dresses to consider that morning, but wound up wearing my junior prom dress. i often overdress because i feel that to own nice, fancy things & never wear them is a waste. i do stow away my nicest dresses, as everyday life is undeserving of their glamor. my prom dress, however, was only $16 on ebay + shipping. i hadn't worn the dress since prom, so i decided to pair it with my prom shoes, too. go big or go home, right?

anyway, my point is not that i looked SUP3R CUT3 on easter. what amazed me was that i looked so childish because so many little girls were clad in fancy, circle-skirted easter dresses. my mother had always purchased easter dresses & shoes for me when i was little, but it was always an alien concept to me, even when i was benefitting from it. apparently the tradition is absolutely alive & well. even the easter bonnet was well represented by the population of young girls at my church.

my best explanatory hypothesis was that the easter parades - a tradition almost as old as easter itself - in europe, particularly during the middle ages, included special costumes/outfits, & the annual creation or purchase of new threads for easter parades evolved into the easter dress. with some research i learned that this is directly tied to the tradition of making or buying new white clothes for "white week" when "newly baptized Christian[s] wore white linen robes for a whole week to symbolize their rebirth and new life". several internet sources attribute the easter dress fad to the annual new york city easter parade because the parade "was a combination of religious services and haute couture in the days before TV", but i think that gives new york city far too much credit. the new york easter parade is what has kept the tradition alive, as it "doesn't have any floats or marching bands but it is a spectacle nonetheless ....[and] outfits range from elegant to outrageous", but is not the site of origin.

new york easter parade 1900

in my easter fa$$$$hion research i also discovered that nordic easter traditions (used to) include children dressing up as witches & going door to door to collect candies in exchange for decorated pussy willows, & that birch tree branches were used on good friday to remind children & servants of christ's suffering through beatings.