“They wanted to get to church at a particular hour, or say their morning prayers early in the morning, because they thought that brought them closer to God.” There was often a sense of one-upmanship, she adds, in terms of who was up and at their prayers earlier than the next person.

Oh man, there’s some weird traditions in my hometown. If you were the last of the family to get up on Pentecost, my mum would call you basically a dumbass. Admittedly, I am still suspicious of this not actually being a tradition and rather just an excuse she came up with to insult us.

Another tradition is that on Easter Sunday, the local wind band would form small groups and walk through the streets to play Easter songs, starting at 5:30 in the morning.
I actually participated in that a few times and the only explanation I have for us not experiencing violence is that people still had to get dressed, while we already moved on to the next street.