Easter Trees / Osterbaüme

It is not surprising in this Catholic country, that Easter decorations abound. There were no decorations for St. Valentine's Day. There were no decorations for St. Patrick's Day. But for Easter, you can take your pick. At least, you can take your pick if you are interested in eggs. You can buy brightly colored hard boiled eggs, all ready for eating. You can buy egg dying kits with marble finishes and glitter washes and vibrant, vibrant (versus the typical pastel) solids. It is also the tradition here to create Easter trees, decorating branches with beautifully decorated
ausgeblasene (blown-out) eggs. It is a tradition that we've decided to adopt, much to Nikolas' delight.

Shops and restaurants hang Easter egg decorations on the bushes by the doors to their businesses. For those with or without bushes, you can also bring the Easter tree inside. Grocery stories have large buckets filled with bouquets of branches (pussy willow and other assorted yellow and red branches) ready to purchase. A few weeks ago, Nikolas was required to bring three blown-out eggs to school. We expect that at some point soon he will come home with the eggs turned into Easter egg decorations, meant for hanging on an Easter tree. Rather than waiting for his decorations, or spending time decorating our own eggs (which we still may do), I invested a whole 2 Euros per set of seven hand-painted blown-out egg decorations made somewhere in Austria, complete with satin hanging ribbons and wooden storage boxes. We selected two different sets, one with three crackled solids and three multi-colored plaids, the other with three multi-colored stripes and three different chick pictures. It didn't take long for Nikolas to finish decorating, and the result is quite terrific!