Happy Easter!

No, Red Baron is not completely gaga yet, but today he read an article in the Badische Zeitung titled: Winter ist Osterhasenzeit (Winter is the time for Easter bunnies).

©dpa

While Santa Clauses made from chocolate wait to be bought at Christmas markets and elsewhere, chocolate factories in Germany already produce Easter eggs and bunnies. Next summer, they will cast chocolate into hollow Santas and Christmas decorations and fill Advent calendars for the 2015 season.

In reading the article, a scene from March 1990 came to my mind when I revisited a place where I had lived as a boy: Entering the house located in the former GDR where I had spent a couple of weeks of my early youth everything including the room where I once slept seemed so small, but nothing had really changed. Even the water faucet halfway up the narrow staircase where I had my morning wash was still in place. I knocked at a door, and from the inside, somebody said: Herein! I opened the door. There the whole family was sitting around a table manufacturing Easter decorations. I knew that in the West, people were already working on decorations for Christmas.

Winter is not incumen in in Germany yet. Therefore the first wave of shopping Lebkuchen (gingerbread) in September passed unnoticed. An expert said that if people buy Lebkuchen in cold September weather, the shelves are empty and ready to take Chocolate Santa Clauses and filled Advent calendars. We hope temperatures will soon drop, helping with the Christmas chocolate sale.

For Red Baron, any season is good to eat chocolate; in summer always out of the fridge.

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