The last day before Easter Vacations was celebrated with a special Easter- Schoolday in the Primary School of Vrontados.
This day was full of different Actions and Creations. The whole school started with a short service in the church of Panagia Erithiani, which is the name holding church of our Primary School.
After we all, the teachers, pupils and us volunteers went back to school, we were invited to visit one little workshop on the churchyard. Due to the coming Palm Sunday, the children of the 5th and 6th grade were taught by an elder woman how to create little crosses with Palm leaves.
We also had the possibility to learn the technique and created ourselves some of these, which was a very nice cultural experiance!
Then the classes started making the special Easter candles, called “labatha”. The candle itself is usually white and is decorated with many things. Parents or God-parents often give them as a gift to the children, who will use them for the Easter midnight service.
In the primary school parents provided the children with material. Each class had something special to decorate the “labatha” with.
Another Greek Easter tradition is the feast of Lazarus. It takes place on the day before Palm Sunday in memory of his resurrection and is also a symbol for the coming of spring. On this day the chidlren usually go trough the streets with baskets, dressed up as “Lazarus” in white sheets and wearing daisy girlands around their neck. They walk from house to house, sing traditional songs and by the end of the day their baskets will have been filled with gifts of candy, eggs, cheese and the like.
For this feast the chidlren of the second class also created something else. The girls made traditional dolls out of two spoons, covered those with white sheets and put flowers in her hair. The boys created traditional crosses out of two wooden sticks, which they decorated with branches and flowers.
To see all the pictures go into our gallery!
