Have you ever heard of Cascarones or confetti eggs? My family is huge on confetti eggs but we tend to get a little out of hand with them.
I have loads of stories- what started as empty egg shells filled with confetti somehow spiraled into the introduction shaving cream one year once the confetti eggs had run out.
Somehow on the next year and the years after that shaving cream was as much a part of our Easter celebrations as the eggs were. (Have you ever had shaving cream shoved up your nose? It’s not pleasant……trust me.)
Do you know what helps when a large family is covered in confetti,egg shells and shaving cream? A water hose or so my brother thought..and so water hoses and super soaker water guns were soon brought into play. Like I said it got out of hand and objections were raised. One of my older sisters is a pastor and has hosted our Easter celebrations for the past two years now at her church, she’s also completely outlawed the use of water hoses and water guns, shaving cream and yeah confetti eggs.
But I know for a fact that my mother makes my brother’s family four dozen confetti eggs every year so we continue to stock up just in case.
When not being used as an arsenal of weapons against bickering siblings cascarones are a fun and colorful way to celebrate Easter. Legend has it that having a confetti eggs cracked on your head may even bring you good luck- I’m not so sure what legend has to say about shaving cream.
I made a dozen this week with the littles the way my grandma used to make them.
We started with the egg shells. You gently poke a hole into the shell with the tip of a knife and then make that hole bigger with your fingers.
You want the hole to be about an inch big all around. You then shake the egg out of the shell;into a bowl, poking the yoke with your knife if it doesn’t come out easily on it’s own.
Wash the egg shell removing all traces of egg and let it dry upside down on straws in a cup or paintbrush ends or pencils….. you get the point.
Once it is dry you can dye the eggshell or paint it. We try to paint ours and I discovered that putting a disk of play dough down on your table first to hold your egg shell in place helps a lot as you paint it. Once dry you can fill your egg shells with *confetti.
I don’t use a funnel but that would be a good thing to use if you have one. Or you can hold your egg over the bowl of confetti and then just use a spoon to try to get as much in as you can that way. We just filled ours inside of an egg carton this time.
Somehow handfuls of confetti always manage to escape and fall on someone standing nearby. (But I’m really trying to stop doing that as it ruins the kid’s concentration and they get a little grumpy about it.)
Once your shells are filled to your satisfaction cover the hole by gluing on a square of tissue paper. You can let your eggs dry in their carton before flipping them over.
*The Confetti!
My grandma was a confetti master. She saved magazines, candy wrappers, foil etc. year round and cut these into small pieces of confetti. Once the confetti was all cut she cut it again and then again. According to my mother the confetti of my grandmother was like grains or glitter so my confetti must put her memory to shame or something like that.
In honor of my grandma and because I am all about being Eco when possible, I never buy confetti to stuff my eggs with. Instead I just cut up whatever scraps and magazines we have on hand. My confetti does not resemble grains of glitter and probably never will but it’s still pretty I think. my mother’s confetti doesn’t resemble grains of sand either but it is much smaller than mine- I think generations lose the ability to cut small pieces of paper into miniscule bits as time goes by or something. (P.S- Have you ever had to get glitter out of your hair? It’s not fun-trust me.)
Do you celebrate Easter with Cascarones or any other fun rambunctiousness? Or do you actually get to wear the pretty Easter clothes that I gave hope of wearing long ago? :) Tell me about it…
