“Every Easter morning, we wake up and find our Easter baskets hidden all over the house,” said Julie Kolson about her favorite Easter tradition. Easter baskets as well as dyeing eggs, egg hunts, and chocolate bunnies are a few of the many Easter traditions found throughout the United States. Easter gets its name from the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, Eostre.
The Easter festivals began as a salute to spring, but Christians combined the celebration with that of Jesus’ resurrection. Catholics have an Easter morning mass to celebrate, “Getting up and going to Church first thing Easter morning is the major thing we do as a family,” said senior Brad Viers. Protestants hold a “sunrise service,” a religious gathering at dawn.
The Easter bunny started as the “Easter hare.” The bunny was chosen because of its fertility and the fact that it appears often during springtime. Stemming from the mythical belief that rabbits leave their eggs in the grass, Easter egg hunts were held. Ancient Romans believed that “all life comes from an egg” and Christians call the eggs “the seeds of life.”
The origin of dyeing of eggs is not known. However, eggs were dyed and decorated for spring festivals in Europe. These eggs were often given as gifts. A common tradition after Easter Sunday in England and Germany is children rolling their eggs down hills to resemble the rolling away of the stone from the tomb of Jesus.
The White House hosts an event on Easter Monday that resembles the egg rolling in Europe. It is the only day on which civilians are allowed on the front lawn of the White House. President Rutherford B. Hayes started this tradition in 1878. However, the event has expanded to now involve stories, music, magicians, and a visit from the Easter bunny.
The baskets that other families, in addition to Kolson’s, have are due to the fact that Eostre is often portrayed holding a basket filled with eggs. This tradition, however, was brought over by German immigrants.
The popular tradition of exchanging Easter baskets filled with candy began with a monk named Father Thomas Rockliffe in 1361. He gave hot cross buns, a popular Easter pastry, to the poor of St. Alban’s in southern Hertfordshire, England on Good Friday. This idea transformed into the baskets filled with eggs and candy that we receive and enjoy today.
A popular feature in Easter baskets is the chocolate bunny. Germans began making chocolate bunnies in the 1800’s. They also made long eared pastries in addition to the bunnies. It did not take long for the tradition to come over to America. Seventy-six percent of Americans say that they eat the ears first on their bunny according to Hersheys.com.
The most recently created basket treat is the marshmallow Peep. John Born, owner of Born Again Creations, began his company making jelly beans. After a woman in the back of the factory created a marshmallow Peep, he began to manufacture them, although they took 27 hours to create.
A year later, they could be produced in mass scale. Born began with just chicks, but eventually branched out to making bunnies and eggs. Americans buy more than 700 million Peeps each year, and five million are made each day in preparation for Easter.
Although there are delicious and fun traditions of the Easter season, it is still a time to reflect and spend quality time with loved ones. “Easter is just a time that I like to get together with my family and enjoy just being together,” said senior Brianna Kyburz.