No matter where you fall in the religious spectrum, you can get behind the Rabbit of Easter. He bring of the chocolate — and that, quite frankly, is a bunny miracle that none of us want to examine too closely. 
We are in Ireland for our second Easter, so some of the subtleties of the season have become more apparent. A Midwestern American’s Easter is not subtle. A common sight in a young Christian American’s life is the Easter Basket. A wicker (or plastic) basket, filled with “grass” and chocolate – chocolate eggs, chocolate bunnies, chocolate pieces. If you are really special, there might be a Peep or two to introduce a more pure form of sugar into the mix. A token to good dental hygiene could be made by throwing in a toothbrush or some floss. A classic American sight, Will, I and most of our childhood friends received – and you probably did too, if your childhood was middle-class and middle-America.
In Ireland, they take a different approach. Instead of a basket of goodies, they go for what we refer to around the Bugle newsroom as the “Heroic” egg. The “Heroic” egg is a total package – a box, sometimes containing just one large egg, and other times supplemented with some ancillary chocolate pieces. The packaging is rather intimidating and overwhelming.
So is the egg. But Will 
discovered that the egg is hollow, with a surprisingly thin shell. The chocolate is good, but in lesser quantities than an American Easter basket. Too bad it wasn’t filled with the product advertised on the box!
Everybody makes a “Heroic” egg – Snickers, Mars, a multitude of Cadbury brands and even the high-end Irish chocolatiers like Lily O’Brien. Speaking with some of my colleagues, each had fond remembrances of receiving their first egg. I didn’t have time to dig into whether the gift of the Heroic Egg was motivated by one’s age or as a reward — mainly because Good Friday is a public holiday in Ireland and I have the day off.
One of the fun aspects of living in a foreign country is the differences in celebrations, like the “Heroic” egg. I can’t wait to be in Luxembourg next Easter to see what the local traditions are. Who knows – we could be getting some chocolates from a bell or something equally unlikely.