Yes, it’s time to talk about a popular Greek Easter game every person in Greece plays, and abroad as well if they’re Greek. It’s called: Tsougrisma | ts??????sµa and in English it means, “egg tapping.”
When I was growing up, my family celebrated two Easters. As a matter of fact, we still do today. Since my mom is Irish Catholic, we have the ‘normal’ Easter, and then we celebrate Greek (orthodox) Easter.
Sometimes they are on the same day, other times they are different. To read why that is, check out this: Celebrating Greek Easter.
Besides the difference in days, there is a vastly different way of celebrating it. First and foremost, the religious reasons are the same - to honor the resurrection of our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. Beyond that, it’s a bit different.
For example, here in the USA, you might dye eggs different colors and hide them around the house of the kids to find the on Easter morning. There is chocolate, candy, and images of Easter bunnies. It’s like Christmas, but with a furry white bunny.
However, for Greeks, we do dye eggs, but only one color. There is no hiding of the eggs, and there is lots and lots of lamb.
When it comes time to celebrate Greek easter, we dye eggs red. All of them. We use no other color but red. So yes, maybe end up buying like 3 or 4 packs of egg dye to only use one color. This is symbolic of Christ’s blood.
They are all placed in a basket which sits in the middle of the table.
All day, Grandpa will be secretly strategizing about which to pick and more than likely talking about how he won last year, or will win this year.
After dinner, the game will start.
Playing Tsougrisma
Everyone gathers around the table, and each person will pick on egg. The order will be from oldest to youngest (it was like that in my home), and once you pick an egg, you’re stuck with it.
Then the oldest person will go first. They will be the one tapping. They will tap the top of your egg (point to point) while you hold it in a way that will no doubt be labeled as unfair, especially should you win and break their egg.
If the person tapping breaks your egg, they go on to the next person. If however, they tap an egg and their egg breaks, they are out and the person whose egg was just tapped will now be the tapper. You do this until only one person is left with an unbroken egg.
The last person left is the winner and is said to have good luck and fortune for the coming year. That is, until next Easter when they must win it again.
In my family, the winner kept the egg in the refrigerator all year as a symbol of the good luck they shall receive. I’ve won the past two years, but that’s only because my grandpa is no longer with us. He’ll always hold the title.
Whether you’re Greek or not, give tsougrisma a try!