About the Holiday
Easter is a holiday that stems from both pagan and Christian observances. Today, these two disparate traditions live side by side in our celebration of the Spring holiday, so tightly interwoven that it is difficult to imagine Easter without some facets of each. While there are some who do not celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, many Christians do not shy from including Easter egg hunts and other ancient customs in their festivities, thus continuing the intermingling of religious traditions.
Although the word "Easter" is derived from the name of the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, Eostre, it is known that pagan celebrations of the vernal equinox originate in the earliest days of human civilization. The first written story of rebirth concerns the Babylonian goddess of love and fertility, Ishtar, who like the more familiar Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone, must descend to the underworld to rescue a loved one. In her absence the world withered, and was only restored to life upon her return--her resurrection. Each year, the Babylonians observed her return with a "Day of Joy" at the time of the vernal equinox, and these festivities paved the way for the celebrations honoring Eostre and the arrival of Spring.
For Christians, Easter is the most important and sacred holiday of the year, for it is the celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ and ascension into heaven 3 days after his crucifixion. It is also the oldest Christian holiday, observed practically from the inception of Christianity itself. For the first few centuries, the date of this observance was in question, but by 325 AD it had been settled on the first Sunday following the full moon after the vernal equinox, although to this day Eastern Orthodox churches, who follow a different calendar, usually celebrate Easter 1-2 weeks after Western churches.
Most Christians, whether Catholic, Protestant, or Eastern Orthodox, celebrate Easter with baptisms, feasting, and the Eucharist or Lord's Supper. Catholic churches also conduct a vigil that includes lighting a special candle called the paschal candle, and a special series of blessings followed by the Easter Mass. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, this vigil includes a procession outside the church, and Protestants usually celebrate with a sunrise service rather than a vigil. The Easter egg hunts and chocolate bunnies that follow hearken back to the pagan symbols associated with Ishtar and Eostre, thus incorporating both religious traditions in the holiday.
Easter Traditions: Easter Dinner
Easter, like many other holidays, comes with a whole host of traditions. But where do these traditions come from and why do we celebrate Easter with a ham or lamb dinner, decorated eggs, and chocolate bunnies? Let's begin with a closer look at the main course of a traditional Easter dinner.
In the Jewish tradition, lamb is served during Passover. The Last Supper was Jesus's final meal with the twelve apostles, and it was held on Passover night. Any meat that Jesus ate at the Last Supper would have been lamb, and so it became traditional for Christians in Europe to eat it at Easter in honor of this. Furthermore, Jesus himself is often referred to as the Lamb of God, and in celebrating his resurrection in this way, there is added symbolism and meaning for many people.
The use of ham at Easter comes from Northern Europe and North America, where lamb has never been an important meat. In the harsh winters of the North, ham was extremely important as a food source because it could be smoked and salted and would keep throughout the winter. In the spring, this preserved pork would be ready to eat at a time when no other fresh meat was available.
Whether your family prefers lamb or ham for Easter dinner, you can be sure that there is a long and significant history to this tradition, and with over 200 delicious recipes, Easter Delights is uniquely suited to inspire a stunning holiday meal.
Easter Traditions: The Symbolism of the Egg
Decorating and hunting for Easter eggs is a huge part of celebrating the Spring holiday. In many cultures around the world, the egg has been a symbol of immortality, fertility, and rebirth since ancient times. The ancient Persians, for example, painted eggs during their celebration of the Spring Equinox, and there is evidence that the symbolism of the egg was important as far back as the Neolithic era 7000 years ago. The correlation is not hard to see: many newborn animals are hatched from eggs, and Spring is the time of year for most animals to give birth.
Many of the Easter games and activities involving eggs that we participate in today date back to customs in Medieval Europe. Decorating eggs was popular at this time, and the tradition was eventually carried to America with the first German settlers. Hunting for eggs and egg rolling games also come from medieval times. Furthermore, the name of the holiday itself comes from the pagan deity Ostara, known as Eostre to the Anglo-Saxons, goddess of the dawn and rebirth of the year. As Ostara, she appeared as a beautiful maiden carrying a basket of eggs and accompanied by a rabbit; as Eostre, her symbol was a rabbit that laid eggs itself.
Today, few people know why we incorporate eggs into our celebration of Easter, although many still enjoy the tradition. It is difficult to imagine Easter without children hunting colorful eggs with decorated baskets in hand, searching for treats to celebrate the coming of Spring.
Easter Traditions: Chocolate
Chocolate bunnies and eggs are as much a part of Easter as a ham dinner or Easter egg hunt. But is this chocolate fetish a modern invention, or do its roots go deeper than that?
In the ecclesiastical calendar, Easter follows immediately after the end of Lent, a time when Catholics and some Protestant denominations refrain from certain foods and festivities in honor of Jesus's 40 days of fasting in the desert. Rich foods like eggs, milk, cheese, and most meats have traditionally been popular choices for abstaining since the early Middle Ages, and chocolate was added to the list once it was introduced to Europe by the Spanish in the 16th and 17th century. Following the enforced abstinence of Lent, many people enjoyed celebrating Easter with a return to all the delicious foods that they had been missing, and eventually this became a tradition of eating chocolate at Easter time. In addition, chocolate was seen as a luxury item for many centuries, making it a natural choice for the traditional gift-giving that occurred during many Spring festivals.
The chocolate eggs and bunnies that are so popular these days are a more recent addition to Easter lore. As we have seen in our previous discussion of Easter traditions, eggs and rabbits have strong symbolic ties to the holiday through the pagan goddess Eostre and the rabbit's natural fertility. This made them a natural choice for shaped hard chocolate candies, which were not invented until the 1850's. Decades later, the Industrial Revolution enabled the chocolate making process to expand into mass production, and with the higher availability of chocolate eggs and bunnies at Easter time began the establishment of it as a widespread tradition.
Today, it is hardly possible to imagine celebrating Easter without baskets full of chocolates wrapped in brightly-colored tin foil--and after all, who wouldn't want to welcome Spring with such a delectable treat?
