Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday that falls after the full moon following the vernal equinox. For most children, Easter is about bunnies that visit in the night, leaving colorful eggs, but for Christians, Easter Sunday is the day that Christ resurrected after his crucifixion. Easter, the preeminent feast that celebrates the resurrection of Jesus, is the earliest Christian festival.
The Name “Easter”
The most common belief is that the Goddess Eostre , was most likely who Easter is named after. She was the Anglo-Saxon Goddess of Spring. Eostre had a special fondness for children. Children followed Eostre wherever she went, as she loved to sing and entertain them with magic. One day, while sitting in a garden with her tag-a long children, a songbird came and sat down on her hand. She whispered something and the bird was transformed into her favorite animal, a rabbit.
The Bunny
The Easter bunny was not invented. The sad truth is that the Easter Bunny is a fantasy character. It is believed that the Easter Bunny originated in Germany, playing the role of a judge, evaluating whether children were good or bad. In the legend, the Bunny brings colored eggs in his basket to the children.
The Eggs
Eggs were a traditional symbol of fertility and rebirth. Christian celebrations of Eastertide includes Easter eggs, a reminder that Jesus rose from the grave, like that of a bird hatching. Christians of Mesopotamia stained eggs red in memory of the blood of Christ, shed at his crucifixion. The eggs are hidden for children to find on Easter morning, which may be left by the Easter Bunny. They are also put in a basket filled with real or artificial straw to resemble a bird’s nest.
The Easter Egg Hunt
An egg hunt is a game during which decorated eggs of various sizes, are hidden for children to find, both indoors and outdoors.b When the hunt is over, prizes may be given for the largest number of eggs collected, or for the largest or the smallest egg. At Eastertime in England, a traditional game is played where hard boiled pace eggs are distributed and each player hits the other player’s egg with their own. This is known as “egg tapping”. The winner is the holder of the intact egg. The losers get to eat their eggs. It is also practiced in Bulgaria, Hungary, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Lebanon, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, and other countries.
Today countless gadgets and novelties have been invented to help us celebrate…