The moderator introduced to the group a classical American musical “Easter Parade” and the I. Berlin song with the same title. The song is often considered to be one of the most popular Easter songs of all time: «In your Easter bonnet with all the frills upon it, you'll be the grandest lady in the Easter parade».
In Western Christianity tradition an Easter Bonnet represents remains of a tradition to wear new clothes at Easter - in harmony with the renewal of the year and the promise of spiritual renewal and redemption. The "Easter bonnet" was fixed in popular culture by Irving Berlin, whose frame of reference was the Easter parade in New York City. This tradition was illustrated with a video of a festive walkabout down Fifth Avenue from St. Patrick's Cathedral.
In the second part of the session we tried to compare the Easter traditions in the USA and in Ukraine. A lot of artifacts were used to help the group with the challenging task- to tell in English about the Orthodox traditions. We discussed such objects as Easter baskets, willow bouquets, Easter eggs.
The most difficult and funny task was to describe several types of traditional Easter eggs: dyed eggs, drop-painted eggs, hand-painted eggs and scratched eggs. The description of other traditions was also quite a challenge. For Easter greeting instead of "hello" or its equivalent, one is to greet another person with a phrase: "Christ is Risen!". The response should be "Truly, He is Risen!" It is also customary to exchange a triple kiss on the alternating cheeks after the greeting.
The session was funny and educational. It has prepared the club members to talk about Christian traditions in Ukraine.
Number of participants – 14 persons.
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