For some people, Easter is a holiday for coloring eggs, Easter egg hunts and chocolate Easter bunnies. However, there is much more to Easter than just chocolate and colorful eggs. Some people consider the holiday as strictly a religious occasion, while others see it as the official beginning of Spring.
There are many fun and interesting facts surrounding the holiday, and some of Easter’s origins even occurred before the advent of Christianity. The word, Easter, comes from the name of a lovely, pagan goddess named Eostre. Eostre was the goddess of spring, and people honored her each new spring season with joyful celebrations, which people now call Easter.
The Easter bunny, which is the symbol of Easter among many people, is a common sight in spring. Both chocolate bunnies and real-life critters signal the oncoming of the season and the end to a long winter. Including rabbits into Easter traditions originated many years ago in Germany, as they considered them as symbols of fertility and the renewal of life.
It was in Germany that people told stories about a friendly Easter hare who hid eggs for children to find. German immigrants, whom traveled to Pennsylvania, brought this fun tradition with them, and soon it caught on with people all over the country. These early immigrants also made Easter cakes, shaped like rabbits, and began the practice of making chocolate eggs and bunnies, as well.
Some people believed that hares symbolized the moon, and the first full moon, following the beginning of spring, determines the date that Easter will fall on. There is one legend that states that the Easter hare was once a large bird, belonging to Eostre, and one day she decided to change him into a rabbit. Since the rabbit thought that he was still a bird, he filled nests with eggs for children to find.
Other significant symbols of the Easter holiday are Easter eggs, and many people viewed them as symbols of fertility and renewed life, as well. Thus, many ancient cultures used eggs during celebrations of spring. Another reason they became a part of Easter celebrations is because many cultures forbade them during Lent. People boiled any eggs that chickens laid in an effort to preserve them, and they became a regular addition to Easter meals and gifts for servants and children.
There are many different games that people have played throughout the ages, using eggs, and some of them still hold strong today. Two of these fun games are egg rolls and Easter egg hunts. Perhaps the most famous egg roll occurs on the front lawn of the White House every Easter.
Various cultures even used Easter eggs as symbols of their various religious beliefs. For example, Orthodox Christians in both Greece and in the Middle East painted eggs dark red, symbolizing Christ’s blood. Many people in America decorate hollow eggs with pictures of such religious figures as the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ.
People in Victorian England designed the first Easter cards, and the very first card was a drawing of a rabbit with a simple greeting. They quickly became popular among people everywhere, and they are now a common way to send Easter greetings to loved ones. There are only three other holidays, in which people exchange more greeting cards than Easter, and they are Mother’s day, Christmas and Valentine’s day.
Easter parades have origins dating many centuries ago. In early times, in Medieval Europe, Christians wore white robes during Easter week after their baptisms, indicating their fresh, new lives. People, who had already received baptisms, wore new clothes, signifying the new life they shared with Christ. They would all then walk through town, with other churchgoers, after Easter Mass. They led their walk with either a crucifix or a candle, and today these “walks” take place in the form of Easter parades.
World War I soldier, Louis Houghton, brought the first Easter Lilies, known then as Bermuda Lilies, to the US in the year 1919. By 1945, there were more than 1,000 growers harvesting lily bulbs for sale. Today, lilies place fourth as the largest potted plants, following azaleas, mums and poinsettias.
There are many references in the Bible pertaining to the beauty and purity of lilies, and many Christians call them White-Robed Apostles of Hope. This is because, people found several beautiful lilies growing in the Garden of Gethsemane shortly after Jesus died on the cross.
Today, Christians line their church alters with Easter lilies during the Easter season as a symbol of Jesus’s resurrection and hope for eternal life. Some churches even envelop their crosses with several Easter lilies during the Easter season. Another story tells of saints and angels bringing lilies to the Virgin Mary after she gave birth to the baby Jesus.
Easter celebrations typically begin on Friday, or Good Friday, and one of the oldest traditions of Good Friday is for people to eat hot-cross buns. These buns originated in pagan times, when early Greeks, Romans and Egyptians marked bread to symbolize various Goddesses and Gods.
Many people believed that eating hot-cross buns on Good Friday would give people good luck, while others believed that if they hung one of these buns over their fireplace, it would ensure that any bread they were to make would be delicious. Yet, others thought that eating these buns on Good Friday would protect their homes from catching on fire.
Today, Easter is one of the holiest and most celebrated holidays on the Christian calendar. For Christians, Easter is the time of year to honor the resurrection of Christ and renewal of life and faith. They typically begin with a church service on Good Friday, followed by gift-giving on Sunday.
Easter places second as one of the top-selling candy holidays, grossing about 1.9 billion dollars per year in candy sales. While some people simply think about chocolate Easter bunnies and colored Easter eggs when they think about Easter, there is much more to the holiday than just candy and eggs. Easter is both a celebration of the beginning of Spring and of the rebirth of Jesus Christ.
