Traditions of the Easter period. Li vattizzirə, the procession of the Dead Christ and lu svejarì on Good Friday. Easter lunch and typical games. Easter Monday and the water passes by. The procession of the Ascension

Easter was a deeply felt event, both in the town and in the countryside, and there were various rites and traditions linked to the Passion of Jesus and his Resurrection. For the Ashes, a large bonfire was organized in the square in front of the parish church of San Benedetto Abate and the parish priest first blessed the fire, then the water. On the evening of Good Friday, before the procession, a rite called li vattizzirə was celebrated. The scourging of Jesus was recalled in the church: the priest and some faithful beat sticks on the ground, as if they were scourging someone. Some even joined in the reenactment by clapping with their hands. After the vattizzirə the solemn procession began, with the statues of the dead Christ (in the past covered by the canopy) and of Our Lady of Sorrows. On that day they could not ring the bells, which were "tied", and were "untied" only on Sunday at noon.
Another rite that has disappeared today is lu svejarì. Instead of the sound of the bells, which were, as already mentioned, "tied", the children ran around the streets making noise with a craft instrument called tricchə-tracchə, a sort of tablet with rattles, equipped with an iron handle. Throughout the year these tools were kept in the sacristy, but at midnight on Good Friday the parish priest distributed them to the children, who then went running through the streets of the village. The sound of tricchə-tracchə could be heard everywhere that night.
 
During the Easter period the dolls and horses were made, sweet biscuits in the shape of a woman or a horse; girls were given the former and boys the latter. On Easter morning, for breakfast, a particular "spianata" was eaten, which broke the days of fasting. The peculiarity of this focaccia is that before breakfast it was taken to the morning mass and blessed; only after the blessing was it consumed. The Easter lunch was a very important one, where many delicacies were enjoyed. The older ones remember that the first course generally consisted of a large plate of macaroni, because the timbale was not yet known among the common people. It seems that four women of the village, who were called to prepare the large wedding meals, as they had good organizational skills, would have learned the secrets of the timbale on the occasion of the marriage of the daughter of a master, celebrated around the mid-fifties, since a cook from Pagliare who worked in restaurants was also called to prepare the wedding dinner: the four women scrupulously observed the stages of preparation and immediately learned to reproduce the delicacy. From then on, the timbale became a permanent part of "important" lunches, such as the Easter one.
 
In addition to the macaroni and the timbale, the pork broth was also much appreciated, which was always among the first courses. The scrippellə mbossə typical of Teramo were also prepared, but the pastry was cut into small squares. The second courses were generally based on meat. A typical dessert was the sweet pizza, which was prepared in all homes and every housewife had her own "secret", which differentiated it from the others. Sponge cake and boiled taralli were also prepared. Spianata levata was typical, a sort of panettone. However, this sweet was bought by bakers, because the preparation was rather complex and few made it at home.
After Easter lunch, stazzə was played, a kind of bocce game simulated by throwing a piece of brick or a rounded stone. We also played schioppetta and spaccamatù, two games with coins. Spectacular were the rutula competitions, which attracted many spectators. Competitors rolled cheese wheels along a sloping road, generally Via Giovanni Amadio or Via Gabriele d'Annunzio, and the winner was the one who managed to make his cheese travel the furthest way. The winner got to get all of the loser contestants' wheels of cheese. There was no shortage of more common games, such as morra, passatella, head or tails and nasconna, or hide and seek. Typical of girls was also lu zembittə, i.e. jumps with rope.

Throughout the Easter holidays, the children enjoyed playing scoccia, a very simple game: hard-boiled eggs were colored or covered in tissue paper and then banged not too hard. The one that broke first lost, the one that remained intact won. The children of the village challenged each other in this game, giving away more eggs and sweets.
On Easter Monday the water was spent, that is, the day was spent out of town, indulging in a nice trip that lasted all day. In Controguerra the villagers met in Piane di Tronto or at Lake Crescenzi and had a long country snack. Forty days after Easter the Ascension falls and even on this occasion it was customary to carry out a procession. In the past it was customary to carry all the statues of the churches, except for the effigy of the Madonna delle Grazie, but around the middle of the twentieth century the custom changed: the witnesses I interviewed recall that statues were no longer carried in processions, but only one processional cross. The priest went to the main viewpoints near the town and blessed the contradas of the war.