Easter

I have vivid memories growing up as a child in Hawaii. All of my friends and family would have a huge family barbeque picnic at Ala Moana Beach Park to eat, play and celebrate together for Easter. The grown ups would hide plastic eggs full of candies, chocolates, toys and money. We would do a giant pinata egg full of goodies that usually the older kids would soon break and penetrate with the baseball bat to release all its wonderful contents to the ground as you see all the kids charge forward in a free for all to grab as much as you possibly could of all your favorites.

As an adult with a family of my own, we celebrate Easter in a similar fashion with the Easter egg hunt trying to see which child finds the golden egg. Every child gets a special curated Easter basket full of their favorite treats followed by family Easter themed movies and a delicious dinner to end the day. My kids were never interested in going to the mall to take pictures with the famed Easter bunny. So what is Easter and how did it come to be?

Easter is a deeply religious holiday for Christians that typically falls in the spring. The holiday celebrates the belief that Jesus Christ resurrected from the dead, three days after the Crucifixion by the Romans approximately 30 A.D. The holiday begins with Lent, a 40-day period of fasting, prayer and sacrifice, and ends with Holy Week, which includes Holy Thursday or the Last Supper of Jesus and his twelve Apostles, Good Friday or the day of the Crucifixion and Easter Sunday or the day of the resurrection. Although Easter is a holiday of high religious significance, much like Christmas, many traditions associated with Easter date back to pre-Christian pagan times. In fact, many of the traditions and symbols that play a key role in Easter observances actually have roots in pagan celebrations, particularly the pagan goddess Eostre, the goddess of spring and fertility.

Easter has also become a highly commercial event often catered toward young children, full of chocolate rabbits, decorated Easter baskets, and colorful eggs. And of course, there’s the Easter Bunny, dropping off baskets of gifts and treats to delight children everywhere on Easter Sunday morning. But how did all these Easter traditions, from candy marshmallow chicks, chocolate bunnies, and dyed eggs to the Sunday celebration and festive meal of Easter lamb become such a large part of the celebration?

This year, Easter falls on Sunday, April 4, 2021, a little earlier in the spring than it did last year (Sunday, April 12, 2020). The holiday is a “movable feast.” Easter is always on a Sunday, but changes every year and follows a similar calendar to the Hebrew calendar based on the lunar cycle.

Some claim that the word Easter derived from Eostre, a pagan goddess of spring and fertility. According to folklore, Eostre found a bird dying from the cold and turned it into a rabbit so its fur would keep it warm, but the rabbit still laid eggs like a bird.

Beyond making for pretty Easter decor and being a fun activity to do with kids, coloring Easter eggs may have a deeper religious connection as well. One such tradition regarding Easter eggs is related to Mary Magdalene, the first person to see Jesus after the resurrection. As the story goes, she was holding a plain egg in the presence of an emperor while proclaiming the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The emperor said that Jesus’ rising from the dead was as likely as that egg turning red, and the egg turned bright red while he was still speaking.

Where does all the chocolate come from? The tradition of chocolate eggs began in 19th century France and Germany and soon spread to the rest of Europe and eventually to the United States. To receive the special Easter eggs, children were told to make nests from hats or baskets so the Easter Bunny could leave them there. Also many Christians are eager to eat chocolate on Easter Sunday because it’s a common modern day sacrifice during Lent.

Another typical Easter food is lamb. Lamb is traditional because Jesus’s last supper was the Passover meal.

Top 5 Fun Facts about Easter

• More than 1.5 million Cadbury Creme Eggs are produced every day, and the Creme Egg is the most popular egg shaped chocolate in the world.

• The world’s largest Easter egg weighs in at 5000 lbs. Standing at 31 ft tall and 18 ft wide and took 12,000 hours to complete. Named the Vegreville Pysanka found in Vegreville, Alberta, Canada.

• Easter is celebrated on the Sunday after the full moon following March 21st.

• In Germany, it is illegal to dance on Good Friday, even in Berlin, Europe’s clubbing capital. Berlin becomes a dance free zone out of respect for the religious day.

• In 2007, a Faberge Easter egg sold for $18.5 million dollars at Christie’s in London. The egg was made by Karl Faberge in St Petersburg in 1902 and is the second largest egg ever made by faberge.

Top 5 Most Popular Easter Candies

• Cadbury Creme Eggs

• Russell Stover Milk Chocolate Easter Bunny

• Reeses’s Peanut Butter Eggs

• Starburst Jellybeans

• Peeps

Top 5 Iconic Symbols of Easter

• Easter Bunny

• Easter Eggs

• Easter Basket

• Hot Cross buns

• Easter Lilies