Interesting Easter Information

 Easter is perhaps the second most popular holiday besides Christmas. While Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, Easter is supposed to be a celebration of his resurrection from the dead. During about two centuries since the rebirth of the Son of God , the original festivity has went through significant changes. What started out as a Passover celebration, with Jesus himself celebrating it just days before his death – the last supper was actually the traditional Passover meal – became the children's favorite of today, with Pagan influences, but nevertheless a festive and fun occasion for everyone.

While nobody really knows why a Hare is important for the Easter holiday and each year about a hundred million chocolate Easter bunnies are manufactured, it had nothing to do with the resurrection, is never mentioned in any of the New Testament books, but despite these facts, it nevertheless became the symbol for the said celebration. It has been mused that Pagan influences were incorporated into Christianity to make it easier to convert people to this religion, but the egg painting Easter bunny shows up in history not before the seventeenth century.

In Europe, the hare was not the only egg painting and delivering service in the early days. Depending on the geographic location, it could have been the cock, the cuckoo, the stork or even a fox. The original published story of an Easter bunny hiding the eggs and  humans going about the gardens looking for them can be traced back to the year 1682, where Georg Frank for the first time declared the hare for the one and only egg hider.

Interestingly enough, the coloring of eggs and all associated activities, without the hare, can be traced back to the early thirteenth century. In this case, the egg was before the hare. But the actual painting of the eggs, as a form of celebration, goes back to ancient Persia, where the tradition was to paint eggs for New Year’s Day, which incidentally took place in early spring.

The case is completely different with chocolate eggs, these can be traced back only to the nineteenth century. Chocolate eggs are less popular than the chocolate Easter bunnies, three out of four people prefer the chocolate bunny to any other Easter chocolate treat. The next time during Easter, when you are in the store, look around and you will see that there are more chocolate Easter bunnies than eggs.

A little known fact is that although in the United States immensely popular, jellybeans are in the rest of the world the least popular foodstuff. Nevertheless, almost twenty billion jellybeans are manufactured each year for consummation during the Easter holidays. It did not stop a manufacturer to build a 3 metric tons large jellybean, which will hold the place in Guinness World Records for a while.

In the United States, the biggest candy consuming holiday is still Halloween , in the rest of the world it varies wildly, in Austria it is rivaled by the St. Nicholas holiday where it is common that the 6th of December is used for giving extra sweets to children, in Luxembourg the same day is more important than Christmas. Interestingly enough, worldwide candy consumption leader may soon become the St. Valentine’s Day, which just recently managed to cross religious borders and is accepted by most nations, less the Muslim countries.

Did you know that the Easter Island, famous for the stone statues, the so called Easter Island heads, or more accurately the Moai, received the name from a Dutch explorer, named Jacob Roggeveen, who discovered them on an Easter Sunday, way back in the 1722? Did you furthermore know that up until the late nineteenth century just a few other explorers went there for a visit?

Did you ever hear of a Faberge egg? These are the exclusive and incredibly expensive bejeweled eggs made by Peter Carl Faberge in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, all together sixty nine individual eggs, made for the Russian Czars Alexander III and Nicholas II. Originally, the Fabergeeggs were made as an Easter present from Alexander III to his wife, Maria Fyodorovna. This Easter bejeweled egg was made out of enameled gold, which could open up, just like the traditional Matryoshka nesting dolls, revealing a golden yolk, which in turn had a golden hen in it, which had a crown, but also in it a ruby. His wife loved the present very much; therefore Alexander III decided to have Faberge deliver another of such eggs, with different surprises inside, every following Easter.

Did you also know that every year, during Easter, more than half a billion chicken eggs are sold, only in the United States?

 In France, from Good Friday until Easter Sunday, all church bells are prohibited from ringing, in order to honor, in silence, the death of Jesus Christ.

There are also two interesting legends, which connect coloring of the eggs with the Easter holiday. One says that Mary Magdalene brought cooked eggs to the tomb of Jesus, in order to share them with other women she was supposed to meet there. The eggs, which she carried in a basket, turned blood red, when resurrected Jesus approached her.

The other legend says that the same Mary Magdalene went to the Emperor of Rome, informing him that Christ has risen from the dead, where he pointed at his breakfast table where a boiled egg was left, claiming “He has no more risen than that egg is red!” thereafter the very egg changed color into the same blood red.

In the Balkan states, it is common for people to go visit friends and family and bring at least one special egg, painted, which is supposed to bring fortune and good luck and which is called a house protector. This egg is not eaten, but kept for as long as it can last.