Easter Traditions New and Old

There are millions of people in this world who celebrate Easter every year. This is actually one of the major Christian festivals in this world which is enthusiastically celebrated everywhere. The Easter celebrations include the Easter egg, the Easter basket, Personalized letter from the Easter Bunny and the Easter games. The basic idea of the Easter festival is to have fun with your loved ones and welcome the spring season after the cold winter. However, have you ever wondered why these traditions associated with the Easter are and exactly is the connection of eggs, Bunny and the basket with Jesus? Also, have you ever wondered why exactly the date of this festival tends to vary widely? Well, for finding answers to these questions please do keep reading.

Before 325 A.D, people celebrated Easter on different days in a year. However, Emperor Constantine put forth different Christian issues in front of Council of Nicaea and one of those issues was to fix a date for the Easter celebrations. Therefore, it was decided that Easter should be celebrated on the first Sunday after first full moon which falls after spring equinox. This is the reason why Easter falls in between March 22 and the April 25. Easter was first known as Eastre which was basically celebrated by Germans. It was celebrated for the goddess of springtime and fertility known as Oestre or Eostre. Among many Christian denominations like Catholics, Easter is considered as the last day of the festival of Lent. Christians are supposed to fast and make other kind of sacrifices during the 46 days of Lent. The day before the fasting period is called as Mardi gras and also as fat Tuesday.

The Easter Bunny is one of the oldest traditions of Easter which was followed since the ancient pagan religions. Easter is the time when winter comes to an end and the spring season begins. Therefore, it is a time when new plants grow from the mother earth and therefore symbolizes fresh and new life. Therefore, this day was an occasion to pay tribute to the fertility goddesses and that the rabbit or hare is thought as the manifestation of fertility. The tradition of the Easter Bunny was brought by the Germans to America but it was not incorporated in the Easter traditions until the Civil War. Nowadays most people put the chocolate bunny into the Easter baskets along with the Letters from the Easter Bunny himself - especially for children. The reality is that the Easter Bunny has become almost as popular as Santa Claus – thus, letters from the Easter Bunny are treasured keepsakes for kids.

The Easter egg symbolizes rebirth all through the history of mankind and also in the mythological traditions. Even in the ancient cultures people exchanged colored eggs a long time before this practice was employed in the modern celebrations of this festival. In the olden times and nests were used instead of Easter baskets and the Dutch children especially for this tradition of filling the bonnets and caps with grass and placing them out overnight. If the offerings were good enough, brightly colored eggs were left in the nest by the fertility goddess. This tradition was adopted and changed into the Easter basket filled with the fake grass later on. I hope you have understood the Easter traditions old and new and their origins.

The Real Story and History of the Easter Bunny

Some consider Easter as a religious holiday and for some it is a celebration on the occasion of end of winter as it symbolizes fresh beginnings. To most people, especially children, it is about the colored eggs, chocolate Easter bunny and other kind of sweet surprises. The colored eggs and Letters from the Easter Bunny himself are the highlights of Easter. However, have you ever wondered what the history and real story of Easter Bunny who is the favorite of everyone is?

Most of us do not question the history of the Easter Bunny as it is a tradition which is followed from the ancient times in almost all cultures. The Easter Bunny is a very prominent icon of this festival and has quite interesting origins. The rabbits and hares and eggs are considered as fertility symbols since ancient times. It is not a wonder that these animals have become symbols of rebirth and fertility associated with earth especially after a long winter as they are prolific breeders. Since number of centuries, parents have been entertaining the children with stories of the Easter hare which visits will be children under Easter night and leaves Easter gifts for them which includes the colored eggs and personalized Letters from the Easter Bunny. Even now, some children tend to leave carrots for the Easter hare it just like the cookies and milk are left for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.

The Easter Bunny has caused a considerable amount of controversy across the world since centuries. Some non-Christian people have renamed the Easter Bunny as the Spring Bunny for maintaining the wall of separation between secular life and religion. Also, some of the Christian people actually disavow Easter for recognizing the pagan roots. In Australia, a rabbit is a non-native species and when they bred in a plague it actually resulted in an ecological disaster. Therefore, the Australians have actually been trying to remove the Easter Bunny and replace it with a marsupial called as the Bilby and therefore you will find a chocolate Bilby in the children's Easter baskets instead of a chocolate bunny.

There is another theory which states that the goddess Eostre found an injured bird in a snowy forest in winter which she transformed into a rabbit so that it was able to survive the cold. However, the transformation was not complete as the rabbit still laid eggs. In gratitude to the goddess the rabbit decorated the eggs and presented the same to the goddess every spring. But, it should be noted that there are no references about this story predating 1990 and therefore it is questionable that this story constitutes any kind of ancient tradition.

However, people have continued to include the Easter Bunny in the Easter celebrations in a major manner and Easter eggs and letters to the Easter Bunny continued to form a major part of the Easter tradition.