50-Year Tradition: German Couple Decorates a Tree with 10,000 Easter Eggs

▲ Ten Thousand Easter Eggs Adorn an Apple Tree (Photo / Tachi Image / AP)

Travel Center / Compiled Report

In Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Poland, decorating trees with ornaments before Easter or Christmas has been a centuries-old tradition. And every year before Easter, Volker Kraft’s apple orchard in Saalfeld, Germany, always becomes a tourist attraction — and this year is no exception. As early as 1965, Kraft first hung 18 Easter eggs on his small apple sapling. As the tree grew over the years, so did the number of eggs. By 2012, his sturdy apple tree was adorned with more than 10,000 eggs. However, Kraft, now in his seventies, says he won’t be adding any more this year.

Easter is one of the most important holidays for Christians, observed on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox. Every year around Easter, the retired German couple Kraft and Christa spend two weeks carefully preparing. Earlier this March, they once again painted many Easter eggs and beautifully decorated the apples in their orchard. This has been their tradition for 50 years, without fail.

However, the title for the tree with the most eggs in the world doesn’t belong to this couple. In April 2007, at Rostock Zoo in Germany, an American red oak tree was decorated with a total of 79,596 eggs. This feat earned it the Guinness World Record for “Most Eggs on a Tree”!