I adore peaking into the chocolate shops in Paris.  The Spring time displays of large decorative Easter eggs, fat chocolate hens keeping their chocolate eggs warm in little baskets is beyond cute.  I love discovering every tiny detail, the colorful bows that wrap the chocolates, the tiny chocolate fish, the large chocolate bells and the butterflies that hang from strings. 

I wondered what the chocolate fish represented and soon learned that as a joke, the French children (just before April fools), stick paper fish on the backs of unsuspecting adults and then run away yelling "Poisson d'Avril".  The tagged adults graciously un-offended respond by giving the children chocolate fish. 

When I learned the significance of the chocolate bells (which are absolutely everywhere from the small grocery to the fancy chocolate shops), I knew that this would be a new tradition for our family at Easter time.

The chocolate bells which are called "cloche volants" or flying bells are an important Easter symbol for the French Catholics.

The traditional belief holds that on Good Friday, all the church bells in France miraculously fly off to the Vatican.  The bells carry all the grief of those mourning Jesus' crucifixion.  These flying bells return to their steeples on Easter morning just in time to ring for the celebration of Jesus' ressurection.