Putting all your eggs in one window.

April 12, 2009 12:45 PM

The other day a childhood memory came back to me. Forgot all about it until we bought and were talking about our Easter Eggs.

When I were a kid back in the North West (of England) we were given Easter Eggs as presents. What we used to is then put them in the front room/living room (which ever room was facing the street) window to display them to anyone walking past.

Now why did we do that ?
And is it still done nowadays ?

It seems like a silly thing to do because if it were sunny the chocolate would melt, but this was Manchester so the chances of that happening were slim.


(Additional note for any Americans - the Easter Eggs we have in the UK are usually big hollow eggs with gifts/prizes or more chocolate inside them)

Extra query - Was this "tradition" just local to where I was or did everybody do it ?

posted by Webbster to Food & Drink (6 answers total)

Where in the North-east? We never did it in the Midlands, but when we moved to west Cumbria, everyone was at it. I thought it was one of those Cumbrian things, like stotties, residual bits of the Norse language still in everyday use, and swede/turnip/swede confusion

I assume it was a bit risky if the sun hit that window...
posted by Helga-woo at 1:25 PM on April 12, 2009

Goddamit I've been down-south too long. I know Cumbria is in the north-west.
posted by Helga-woo at 1:26 PM on April 12, 2009

Also, reading comprehension is not my strong point. I see you're in Manchester. Be pleased to know that's not the only part of the country to risk melted Easter eggs for the sake of some sort of tradition. But I've no idea why it's done. But then I was never really from the north-west, no matter how long I lived there, perhaps this is part of the induction that you get when you start infant school (as far as I can tell, being there for first year of infant school was the test for whether you were a local or not).
posted by Helga-woo at 1:36 PM on April 12, 2009

I'm not from the UK at all, so I know nothing of the traditions or the dynamics of your neighborhood or village, but what pops to mind is that the eggs might've been displayed, rather like a sort of trophy, say, to let everyone who might pass by see the cool eggs you got, rather like a shiny new bike for Christmas...? ...maybe a way to show that your family has some disposable cash, or could scrape some together for the occasion...? (And maybe none of this makes any sense in the context of the community from which you hail...!)
posted by sparrowdance at 6:44 PM on April 12, 2009

I was in North Yorkshire as a kid, and we never had anything like that. It sounds bizarrely regional.
posted by BishopsLoveScifi at 10:32 PM on April 12, 2009

Maybe the window ledge was a better (safer) bet than a mantle-piece?

Also, are you sure it wasn't where they were placed to *await* consumption (on Sunday, right)?

Hence, from a religeous perspective, was it perhaps 'announcing' the impending resurrection?

'IANAEEE' ;)
posted by DrtyBlvd at 8:05 AM on April 13, 2009