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Our ancestors used to celebrate Easter very carefully. They used to keep many traditional customs; some of those have survived until nowadays, especially in the country. Czech are less religious than some other nations and many do dot perceive Easter as an important Catholic holiday but rather as a welcome to the  spring, an opportunity for the family to get together at the Ester table or to visit some of the many cultural events that take place at Easter.

Easter represents the climax of a forty-day lent season that follows after merry carnival celebrations.

The Sundays in the lent season have their own special names and customs:
Black Sunday (women wore black scarves, mothers baked pretzels at nights so that the children could not find out);
Roasting (Prazna) (corn seeds were roasted; a roasted meal called prazmo and (roast) soup called prazenka were made of roasted corns) ;
Sneezing Sunday (people wished each other not to sneeze since they believed that sneezing starts the plague. They greeted each other God heal you! and God help!);
Best Men's Sunday (on this Sunday the groom and his best man used to come to the house where they were going to come during the whipping to woo)
the fifth - the Death Sunday (the Death was carried away from the village, as a puppet made of straw, which was thrown into the river near the village);
the last, Blooming Sunday (celebrated to commemorate Christ's entry to Jerusalem; goat willow twigs - catkins are sanctified).

Homes  are  being cleaned more thoroughly than during the year, women buy for themselves and their near ones new clothes - “so that the lamb does not besmirch them“. Skilful housewives bake various sweets such as mazanec = a kind of milk loaf (from the word “pomazat” = anoint, i.e. anointed pastry), they make pastry in the shape of a lamb for children (the symbol of Jesus Christ as a Lamb of God), or Judas pastry (jidášky = sweet leaven pastry coated with honey). Easter lunch usually serves the Easter stuffing with nettles or parsley, baked lamb or mutton. Another preserved tradition is sowing of grass or corn into a low bowl with soil (it symbolizes the beginning of agricultural works), people let the seeds germinate and then decorate them with painted eggs or little chicks.

An essential part of Czech Easter is “pomlazka“ - the tradition of whipping. Boys braid whips from fresh willow twigs, they decorate them with colourful ribbons and on Easter Monday they go carol from house to house. This custom comes from an old tradition – it is believed that the energy of spring nature in the twigs is in this way carried over to the women and it raises their fertility. The carollers today whip the house wife and the girls and say the carol. Then they are given coloured boiled and/or chocolate eggs or other sweets. The egg, the symbol of fertility and growth, is usually decorated in different techniques. Hand-painted egg shells (the inside is blown out of the shell and the shell is kept), this type of Easter egg is  called ”kraslice” and can be found in any Easter market place. At home, boiled eggs are also painted and decorated.

Churches are decorated for the holiday and during the holy week sermons relating to the passion events are held there: “Blooming Sunday“ (Christ's entry into Jerusalem), “Green Thursday“ (Jesus' prayer in Getsemane Garden), “Good Friday“ (Jesus sentenced to death and crucified), “White Saturday“ (Jesus' body taken off the cross and buried in the grave), and “Easter Sunday“ (the celebration of Jesus' resurrection).

In Easter time, exhibitions and fairs are organized where people can see Easter customs and traditions, hand made goods with Easter motifs, decorated Easter eggs and Easter braided whips, their manufacturing and decorating, food preparation and so on. Passion plays are dramatized and various folk music bands and dancers perform. Easter is an opportunity to visit museums of folk architecture where people in traditional costumes present shows of old traditions and customs. In churches and concert halls Easter concerts of classical music take place.
Easter Monday is a public holiday in the Czech republic.

Monuments and landmarks are usually open on Easter Monday.

Recipes

Easter Lamb

250 g of butter, 170 g of sugar, 1 vanilla flavoured sugar, 4 eggs, 150 g of flour, 100 g corn flour, 1 tea spoon of baking powder, grated peel from one lemon and one orange, 2 table spoons of rum
Stir the butter with sugar until foamy, then slowly add whole eggs stirring all the time. Add in spoons flour mixed with corn flour and baking powder into the dough. Finally add the grated peel and rum. Butter a lamb-shaped form with fat and sprinkle with flour. Pour the dough in and bake for about an hour. Keep the oven on the highest (grade 3) temperature for half of the baking time, then about 15 minutes on grade 2 (middle) and the rest of the time on a lower grade. Then leave to cool down for about 5 minutes and remove from the form. Sprinkle sugar on and coating can be added: Whisk one egg white, 100 g of fine sugar and juice from a half of lemon in a pot above steam.

Mazanec – milk loaf

Leaven dough  – 1 kg of flour, 60 g of yeast, 160 g of sugar, 200 g of butter, 4 egg yolks, a pinch of salt, 3/8 lt of milk, 100 g of raisins, almonds to decorate with. 
Let the leaven rise, meanwhile mix butter, sugar and yolks in a bowl, add flour with salt, pour the leaven and milk in and mix in chopped almonds with raisins. Work the dough on a floured rolling board and let it rise (at least for two hours in a warm place). Decorate the leavened loaf with almonds and smear with whisked egg. Bake for about an hour at 200 centigrades.

Jidáše – Judas pastries

1/2 kg of flour, 50 g of sugar, 2 egg yolks, 70 g of fat, 20 g of yeast, milk, salt and egg to top with
Whisk sugar with fat and egg yolks, add a pinch of salt, flour and leaven. Work stiff dough and let it rise. Then chop it into pieces and roll them out into thin strips. Roll the strips into a spiral, smear with egg and bake. Smear with honey while still warm.

Easter Stuffing

1 - 1,5 kg of meat (about half of baked pork and half of boiled beef), 10 eggs, 1/2 lt of milk or broth, about 10 bread rolls, nutmeg, parsley or young nettles, salt 
Mix egg yolks in milk or broth well. Pour on bread rolls chopped into cubes, grate as much nutmeg as you like, add meat chopped into pieces, green parsley or chopped young nettles, and salt. Finally add stiff egg whites gently. Spread the stuffing into a tray buttered with bread crumbs, lay butter on top and bake.