#(Ours is filled with smaller wrapped Baci candies and I'm so tempted. But I can't!)

[more-than-a-princess]

For Sonia, Easter holidays are very different than sexy bunny outfits on Sunday.

Easter, in Novoselic, is a four day holiday affair, beginning on Good Friday and ending on Easter Monday. The extra day of recouperation is necessary, as Novoselic's biannual Makango Catch falls on the Friday and Saturday before Easter and the Friday and Saturday of Harvest Festival and Masquerade Ball week in October (and often coincides with Sonia's birthday). Couples in Novoselic looking to marry in the autumn and winter months participate in the spring Makango Catch while those looking to marry in the spring and summer participate in the autumn Makango Catch. Both of these are important, and symbolic, festivals done to bless happy unions. The Royal Family will have therefore spent the past 48 hours leading up to Easter Sunday travelling around the country, giving small speeches and opening the Makango Catch in Novoselic's largest cities and more prominent towns. It's usually a surprise as to which member of the Family a city will get for their Makango Catch opening (and it doesn't stop official sports betting from placing bets on the, ahem, more interesting and dynamic members of the family. No one wants to be stuck with the Queen Mother, as she tends to drone on and has fallen asleep at the podium before, standing up).

By Saturday night, most of the family is already exhausted but they cannot look tired in the least: the entire Royal Family is expected to turn up at Easter morning mass on Sunday morning. A move of family unity and love (Sonia's cousin Liam has dubbed it 'family profanity and shove'), they are photographed by the media (from the respectable papers all the way down to the paparazzi from the gossip rags) walking to Church and leaving as a family (which means those smiles are fixed in place whenever they aren't under the chapel roof!).

Afterwards, the immediate and extended Royal Family alike (alongside partners, spouses, offspring, members of the aristocracy whom the royals are particularly warm to, and probably a charity representative or two focused on fertility health, children's needs, or other charities seen as appropriate for Easter) return to Novoselic Castle for the annual Easter Egg Hunt and Easter Brunch. Children under the age of 13 scour the grounds for chocolate candies and chocolate-shaped eggs, often filled with more candy: there are no dyed, hard-boiled eggs or pre-filled Easter baskets here.

For those over the age of 13, the custom is to down as many mimosas and bellinis as one can stand to make the event tolerable, enjoy a lavish sit-down meal featuring chicken and lamb (alongside rice and pasta dishes, vegetables, springtime soups and appetizers, etc), Easter Bread, and an appropriately-themed dessert: fruit tarts with seasonal offerings, cakes decorated with marzipan flowers and flavored with rosewater and citrus, or chocolate cakes/souffle/tortes are all popular options.

It is also the custom to give large chocolate eggs to older children, adults, and families: many Novosonian (and French, and Italian) chocolate companies produce confections just for the occasion, but Novoselic's wealthiest choose to commission eggs from the best chocolatiers themselves, the eggs looking more like a work of art than something to eat.

Which is the entire point: the polite thing to do is to nibble at any part of the egg that isn't sculpted into some sort of artistic rendition of Easter, or whatever motif or style the receiver prefers, and then to gently open the egg. Inside, there's traditionally smaller chocolates and other confections to be found, and what's often sold in the mass-market varieties.

But Novoselic's upper class takes it a step further: it is not uncommon for recipients to find in their eggs: jewelry or other small accessories, fine cigars, gift certificates for various holiday destinations, keys to a new car or other vehicle, and in some cases, checks in plastic envelopes or notes that a donation has been made to charity in their name. For Novosonians over the age of 12, Easter can be seen as a mini-Christmas of sorts: and while Christmas is far more focused on charitable endeavors, Easter is all about celebrating youth, marriage, and fertility, and so younger, unmarried, and/or childless members of the upper class and aristocracy are more prone to be given lavish gifts in their eggs in the hope that they too will be successful where marriage and children are concerned.

In some cases, joke eggs have been given, but one must tread carefully: someone anonymously once sent the Queen of Novoselic an egg full of individually-wrapped condoms, which she'd, thankfully, discreetly unwrapped during the post-brunch tea and quickly left the room to dispose of.

Easter Mondays, therefore, are often used to indulge in new gifts, recover from alcoholic and/or drug-induced hangovers brought on by too many relations (near and distant) asking one about their dating/marriage/reproductive prospects, or simply too much chocolate. A smaller afternoon tea is popular with those living in grand homes made for hosting them, and older members of the Royal Family are often ruining their manicures by indulging in the one Easter treat no one wants and is left over: raw chicken eggs that have been dyed, had a hole poked in them to drain them of the egg innards, and are then filled with chocolate-hazelnut ganache. The 'fun' is supposed to be tearing bits of the colored shell off to eat the ganache inside, but it's mostly messy and a task they'd rather die than be seen doing.