When I was a kid, I looked forward to dying Easter eggs all year long. My mother would hard boil dozens of eggs for my brothers and I, then would set up an extravagant spread of various colors, stickers, crayons, paint brushes and more to ensure we could create whatever beautiful visions we could imagine on our festive eggs. We weren’t too interested in eating the eggs, but we loved showing off our masterpieces and creating a few that we would send rolling down the driveway to race one another. Easter was never a huge holiday for myself or my family, but I’ll look back on the memories of decorating eggs with my brothers for the rest of my life.

Easter is a traditionally Christian holiday, so the entire world does not partake in the festivities, but it is widely celebrated in about 95 nations. According to Kwintessential, many countries around the world have various ways of celebrating, with chocolate eggs and Easter egg hunts being common in the United States and the United Kingdom. As a kid, I was always lucky to receive an Easter basket with chocolates, and I would run around the yard searching for eggs filled with candy and, if I was really lucky, I might even find $5. Hot-cross buns are also popular in the UK on Good Friday, a delicious tradition I was happy to partake in when living there.  

“In France the church bells do not ring for three days from Good Friday as a token of mourning for the crucified Christ,” Kwintessential explains. “Easter morning children watch the sky to see the bells ‘fly back from Rome’, while their elder family members hide chocolate eggs for them to find.”

Meanwhile, “Italians celebrate with a Paschal feast of roasted baby lamb and a crown-shaped bread studded with coloured candied eggs,” the team at Kwintessential goes on to note. “Dramatic processions take place including ‘devils’ rampaging around Prizzi and locals in Trapani carrying life-sized wooden sculptures through the streets for 10 hours. Easter processions are also spectacular in Spain, with special celebrations of note taking place in Valladolid, Malaga and Seville.”

In Germany, Easter is called Ostern and features celebrations including the lighting of Easter Fires and preparing special meals. “Unique festivities take place in Traustein, where riders in traditional Bavarian costume take part in an Easter horseback parade and there’s a sabre dance to celebrate the victory of spring over winter,” Kwintessential explains. “In the village of Oberammergau, a special Easter Passion Play takes place every 10 years.”

“In Sweden, this time of year is called Påskdagen and is predominantly a secular holiday, celebrated with a meal of eggs, herring, and Jansson’s Temptation (potato, onion and pickled sardines baked in cream) and where children may dress up as ‘Easter witches’,” Kwintessential writes. “Meanwhile, close by in Norway, many use the holiday to read mystery books and watch deceptive series, calling it Paaskekrim or ‘Easter-Crime’.”

“In Mexico, Easter celebrations involve two big observances, Semana Santa (Holy Week) and Pascua (Resurrection Sunday to the following Saturday),” Kwintessential shares. “Starting on Palm Sunday, Semana Santa sees Passion Plays take place and locals buy special elaborately woven palms from outside churches, before hanging them on their doors to ward off evil. Easter Sunday morning marks the start of Pascua, where great celebrations follow the morning service, with towns often having fêtes including stalls and even fairground rides.”

If you’re curious why we dye Easter eggs in the first place, it turns out that the tradition goes back thousands of years. “There is evidence that the Trypillian culture that lived in Central Europe from 4,500 BC to 3,000 BC dyed eggs,” Melissa Locker at Southern Living writes. “Generally, historians seem to think that the custom got started when the ancient Persians, or Zoroastrians, painted eggs for Nowruz, or Persian New Year, according to The Kitchn. That custom continues today among some Persian families who dye eggs to mark Nowruz.”

While we can’t know for sure exactly when Christians began dyeing Easter eggs, the tradition of drawing on eggs with wax and dye may have come from Ukraine in the 10th century, when Christianity spread there. “In the Greek Orthodox tradition, dyed red eggs have marked the occasion since Mary Magdalene went to visit the tomb of Jesus and discovered that he was no longer there and her snack basket of eggs turned bright red,” Locker explains.

Locker goes on to note that it wasn’t until the late 19th century that eggs became treats for children, “thanks in part to the Victorians who loved a good old tradition.” Their enthusiasm for historical fun “helped bring the art of dyeing Easter eggs into the modern era. Easter-egg hunts came next, and the White House got in on the fun, hosting the first annual Easter Egg Roll in 1878.”

We hope you’re enjoying these creative, beautiful and impressive Easter egg masterpieces, pandas! Feel free to steal some ideas from this list if you have plans to dye eggs this weekend, and let us know in the comments below what the most magical Easter eggs you’ve ever seen were. Then, if you’re interested in checking out a previous Bored Panda article featuring even more fabulously decorated Easter eggs, you can find our last list on the same topic right here!