Another Easter under our belts. Ah, Easter - or as Mr. L refers to it: mini-Christmas. I tend to agree with him and have recently been developing some minor issues with the modern celebration of Easter. I have always enjoyed Easter. Decorating eggs, Easter egg hunts, Easter baskets, dinners with family and getting dressed up made up our Easter celebrations. But as typically happens, especially in our culture of excess, things have escalated quite a bit from the Easter celebrations I remember as a kid.
Mr. L and I believe in a higher power. We do not attend church. I know this can bother some people, but we have always been of the opinion that we don't have to go to church to be able to pray or talk to God. So because of this our children do not know much about the bible and Christian church. To each his own! We have talked to the older boys about the meaning of Easter. We told them it celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ after his death on the cross.
D seems to understand this and I think it'll take a couple of years for W. A couple of nights ago D asked Mr. L: if Easter is about celebrating the resurrection of Jesus why does a bunny hide eggs and bring gifts? What a great question! For someone so young he seems to have a deeper comprehension of many things and a questioning mind - which is fantastic! I didn't have the answer to his question and my curiosity was piqued. So I have decided to do some research into the history of Easter traditions and symbols to help D, and myself, understand more about our modern Easter celebrations.
Lets start with when the celebration of Easter occurs every year. According the bible Jesus was resurrected on a Sunday, but due to different calendars Easter would sometimes fall on another day. This caused controversy in the church because many felt Easter should always be celebrated on a Sunday the day of resurrection. In 325 AD at the Council of Nicaea a formula for determining when Easter would fall was determined. Easter would be the first Sunday following the full moon after the vernal equinox that occurs on March 21. So Easter can fall anywhere between March 22 and April 25 - for the Western Christian churches. Orthodox Christians use the Julian calendar to calculate Easter Sunday and this typically falls one to two weeks after the Western Christian Easter. Have I confused you yet?
Now lets move on to the Easter bunny and eggs. According to some sources in the Christian church the egg yolk represents the emergence of Christ from his tomb and originally eggs were painted red as a symbol of the blood shed by Jesus on the cross. Also, it is thought that eggs were on the list of foods banned by the Christian church during Lent so people would decorate then eat them as a celebration of the end of Lent. But where did the idea of a bunny that lays eggs come from? Rabbits were an ancient pagan symbol of new life and fertility - due to their procreation abilities, both of which are symbols of springtime and Easter.
In the pagan tradition rabbits are also associated with the moon and the egg with the sun so on the spring equinox when the night and day are the same length the rabbit and the egg come together. Easter bunnies became associated with Easter in 17th century Protestant Europe most likely as Christianity spread across Europe and merged with some pagan traditions. Children would build nests for this egg-laying rabbit called "Osterhase" to lay its eggs in. Some sources say that the tradition of the Easter bunny came to America with German immigrants in the 18th century and the nests developed into baskets which eventually developed into games of hunting for the eggs. Decorating eggs for Easter can be dated back as far as the 13th century to some sources! Here's an interesting tidbit: in Switzerland a cuckoo brings Easter eggs to the children and in different parts of Germany the animal that brings the eggs can be a fox, a rooster, chick or a stork!
Candy makers eventually got into the game when they started making things like chocolate Easter eggs to fill the baskets in the 19th century. Jelly beans didn't become associated with Easter, like we see today, until the 1930's when candy makers pointed out how their shape resembled an egg. Peeps, the mass of sugar molded into bunnies or chicks, came to be in the 1950's. Of course these days you see marketing by toy companies aiming to get you to add lots of toys the the Easter baskets too.
So these are a few of the basic origins behind a few of our modern Easter traditions. As for our Easter - it was good. Emergency room and illness-free makes it a success in my book! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter and now know a little more about the history of Easter celebrations.
One last note: I love researching history and learning new things! It makes me feel like I have gotten some use out of my brain. Also please forgive my writing, I'm just getting back into some of this stuff and am a little rusty. Maybe down the road there will be some other posts embracing my inner nerd that will cover various topics such as mathematics and science! Yipee!
The information I used was gleaned from:
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