Easter week traditions

Today is Holy Tuesday, which is not the same as Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday. I grew up in a Congregational Church and we'd always have a pancake breakfast on Shrove Tuesday. The basement of the church had a huge kitchen and room to eat it, so we'd all get together and have pancakes and bacon. My dad would often be one of the guys cooking in the kitchen. I was allowed to be late for school, which was a treat.I didn't know it then, but apparently this is common in the UK and Ireland.

Apparently, long ago, strict Christian Lenten rules prohibited the eating of all dairy products, so keen housewives made pancakes to use up their supplies of eggs, milk, butter and other fats. They could be easily made and cooked in a skillet or on a griddle. Families ate stacks of them, and pancakes were popular with all classes.

I don't recall much about Holy Tuesday. This is the day Jesus spoke with his disciples at the Mount of Olives, but my church never celebrated this specifically.

On Easter, my family plays the traditional Armenian egg cracking game using hard boiled, colored eggs. The one who cracks another's egg without cracking their own gets to take the cracked egg. Whoever ends with the most eggs, wins (and ends up eating egg salad all week).