German Easter Tree

Germans blow out their Easter eggs before they decorate them. Here are the directions for making an Easter tree from those eggs. This is a lovely pre-Easter group activity for the family or for a Sunday school class.

Symbols of New Life and Spring

Eggs are symbols of new life and therefore for spring. Here are some reasons.

Eggs contain the new life for the chick which is going to hatch from it.

Chickens start laying eggs in the spring after a long break in the winter.

Easter is the festival of resurrection and new life.

Ethnic Differences

In different countries, people treat eggs differently.

Greek people hard-boil eggs for Easter. They take one of the eggs for every person in the house and leave it on their family altar. The next year, the egg gets eaten, and my Greek friends tell me that those eggs are not spoiled as one would expect.

Ukrainian people create their colorful designs with wax batik and food color on raw eggs. The eggs need to be turned occasionally while drying to keep from exploding.

German people can't afford to waste the contents of the eggs, so they only decorate the empty shells.

Blown-out Eggs

Today I want to tell you how Germans blow out their Easter eggs before they decorate them. Getting the shells ready:

• Take a sharp poker (an awl, a knitting needle, a crotchet hook, or a nail) and poke one hole in the top and one in the bottom.
• Hold the egg over a bowl and blow into one of the holes. The contents of the egg will empty into the bowl and can be used for scrambled egg or for baking. Cover the bowl and keep it in the fridge. If you cannot use the eggs in the next couple of days, freeze them. Be sure to dry the egg shells with soft paper towels or with toilet paper. Otherwise the decorations will get smudged.

Decorating the Shells When my preschool Sunday school class decorated the eggs, we used simple designs for the children. Germans like to draw spring scenes. Here are some of the things which the preschoolers put on the eggs. When I was young in Germany, we used pencil crayons. We now prefer to use permanent felt markers. They are more brilliant.

• Text like "Happy Easter" or "Halleluia."
• Easy flowers like tulips, daisies, or forget-me-nots.
• Simple animals like Easter bunnies, birds, or bugs.
• Abstract designs.

Setting up the Easter Tree

Germans take a birch tree branch and set it up to look like a tree. They then hang the eggs on them as they would hang decorations on a Christmas tree. The branch can be anchored in a heavy vase. If there is enough water in the vase, the buds on the branch will sprout in the house, making the tree particularly spring-like. My preschool class used a basswood tree branch which we happened to find in the basement of the church, already anchored in a stand.