Lifestyle Insight Magazine

Stores are flooded with pastel-colored décor, plastic eggs loaded with jelly beans, and of course, everything with a rabbit motif every April.

Easter signifies religious festivities as well as the unofficial start of spring in the northern hemisphere. However, how did the bunnies participate in this celebration? Where do they obtain the eggs, too?

Easter was first observed as Pascha, a term drawn from the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic words for the Jewish Passover festival. Eastern European populations continue to commemorate Pascha today. As the early church expanded throughout the first and second centuries, the celebration of the resurrection came to be known as Pascha, a holiday commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus as recorded in the Christian Bible.

Festivals and customs altered and evolved with new cultures, languages, and communities as the church flourished and spread throughout Eurasia and Europe. The religious season expanded to include festivities before and after Pascha, and several countries incorporated into the festival season their own culturally significant customs.

When Easter is observed now, it looks very different from how it was observed around two millennia ago. The main festival has been influenced by culture for two millennia, not to mention the historical significance of the church.

However, let’s concentrate on some of the symbolism behind the contemporary Easter celebrations and discover their origins and the reasons behind their inclusion in the commercial Easter festivities! Similar to how, around Easter, a rabbit that delivers eggs came to represent the arrival of spring.
The Easter rabbit and its abundant gifts never featured anywhere in the original holiday festivities, even though the tradition has its roots in Christian observances. People combined religious holidays with regional customs to develop new traditions that allowed communities to celebrate in ways that had deeper personal and cultural importance to them, just like with many of the holidays and festivities we have today, like St. Patrick’s Day and Halloween, for example.

For a very long time, eggs have represented fertility as well as life and death. In certain parts of Africa, decorated ostrich eggs have been discovered dating back almost 60,000 years, and as recently as 3,000 B.C., the Sumerians and ancient Egyptians were burying golden eggs in their tombs.

During Easter, early Christians would paint eggs red to represent the crucifixion; this custom spread along with the religion. Since eating eggs was prohibited during the mediaeval Lenten season, which came before Easter, people would paint and decorate eggs to symbolise the end of their fast.

The rabbit is associated with the fertility of the goddess Ēostre, despite the lack of concrete evidence for its introduction into religious celebrations.

The rabbit was often connected to the goddess Freyja and, many believe, to Ēostre because of its propensity for proliferating so rapidly, which made it a symbol of fertility in old European folklore. The rabbit was also considered a fertility symbol in mediaeval churches, but it was connected to the Virgin Mary rather than pagan deities.

German Protestants invented the myth of the Easter bunny in the 17th century after reading in a children’s book about an Easter hare who gave eggs to good kids. The fabled hare known as Osterhase was known for leaving colourful eggs for kids to discover the night before Easter. Candy and chocolates were quickly added to the custom, and baskets were left as nests for the rabbit to store its finds.

The legends and customs surrounding Easter were brought to America by German immigrants in the early 1700s. This featured egg decorating customs and stories of the Easter Hare, which gave rise to the Easter Bunny and eggs loaded with candy.

Easter is currently the second-best candy-selling event in the US, behind Halloween. On Easter morning, the Easter Bunny delivers a tonne of candy, eggs, toys, and other goodies. The unofficial start of the season is marked by the popularity of egg hunts around the nation and the appearance of spring-themed décor.

Thousands of years of cultural influence, religious celebrations, and historical events have all contributed to the Easter we celebrate today, from painted eggs discovered in the Kalahari Desert to the festivities we enjoy today. Who could have known?