So What Exactly is Easter?

[John Cribati]

I never thought I would ask this question, but it came to me in a vision.

In the household I grew up in, we had a reason to celebrate Easter. This reason is not forum-appropriate to discuss, so we will not.

However, the holiday is recognized all over America, and I highly doubt that the entire country celebrates for the same reasons my family does.

From what I gather, it’s something about a bunny. But… there are no Easter specials on TV (except for Charlie Brown, natch), no Easter Bunny Mythos, no other figureheads for this holiday.

So… what is it exactly?

[LaZodiac]

There is an Easter Bunny mythos.

A rabbit comes and hides chocolate for you to find. The end.

Now, as for it's ORIGINS...well, they're not board safe stuff either, so we are at an impasse

[Grinner]

Behold the TRUE story of Easter!

[Aedilred]

It's difficult to talk about it in detail without breaching forum rules. It's resisted secularisation much more than Christmas has, which I think is why it has a slightly awkward status, especially in countries which have never had a state religion. In the UK, at least we get a super-long weekend, even if you don't celebrate the festival itself.

As for the bunnies, there is an ancient connection to rabbits (it was the symbol of the festival's original English namesake) and that might have proven the basis for the Easter Bunny. I don't know why Father Christmas/Santa Claus has had such a mythology grow up around him where the Easter Bunny hasn't, although I suspect much of the stuff to do with the Christmas icons is only twentieth-century so maybe it's just that Easter took longer to commercialise.

Realistically, I don't think anyone actually questions the reasoning behind these festivals unless they're involved in the religion in question. Easter is about chocolate. Christmas is about presents (and maybe some guff about togetherness and the true meaning of Christmas), and so on.

[Knaight]

Staying away from the religious aspect - The big thing is that holidays are simply useful to have. They are opportunities in which large groups of people all have the same free time*, along with having a pre-set, understood idea of festivities. It keeps schedules organized together, and because of that enables celebrations, reunions, etc, regardless of what it is actually about. Because of this synchronicity, traditions are an easy thing to have - particularly when they can be manufactured wholesale by, say, chocolate companies.

Easter in particular is in a nice time of year - there's a pretty big gap around it, and it's still early enough in the year for a higher holiday density to be desirable (holidays tend to cluster in the winter, and the darker, colder, and more miserable the winter in an area the more holidays suddenly seem to appear in it).

*There's a rant here about holiday hours in stores, but I'm not getting into it.

[Mauve Shirt]

Easter, to the surprise of many, is the most important holiday of the Christian faith.
I think the reason it has avoided the commercialization of Christmas is simply that the winter solstice is more fun to celebrate. Winter sucks and begs for a party. Springtime is a party all season, unless you have allergies in which case you should probably stay inside and get reasonably smashed.
And of course, you celebrate fertility in springtime. You don't want to invite all the family over for THAT.

[Grinner]

Easter, to the surprise of many, is the most important holiday of the Christian faith.

There's a bit of a divide between the execution of a rabbi and a giant rabbit delivering chocolate.

[Aedilred]

There's a bit of a divide between the execution of a rabbi and a giant rabbit delivering chocolate.

And all these years I've been executing a rabbit and getting a giant rabbi to deliver chocolate. Now you tell me...

[Coidzor]

I never thought I would ask this question, but it came to me in a vision.

In the household I grew up in, we had a reason to celebrate Easter. This reason is not forum-appropriate to discuss, so we will not.

However, the holiday is recognized all over America, and I highly doubt that the entire country celebrates for the same reasons my family does.

From what I gather, it’s something about a bunny. But… there are no Easter specials on TV (except for Charlie Brown, natch), no Easter Bunny Mythos, no other figureheads for this holiday.

So… what is it exactly?

Inertia. Once you've got a day set aside for celebrating, you don't just throw it away just because you don't share in any of the myriad of reasons for celebrating it anymore.

[Mauve Shirt]

There's a bit of a divide between the execution of a rabbi and a giant rabbit delivering chocolate.

{SCRUBBED}

And rabbits are symbols of fertility, which as I said is a springtime thing. The chocolate is obviously to distract the young people so that the parents can... Reproduce.

[The Giant]

This was on sketchy ground to begin with, and now we've made the unavoidable turn into discussing articles of one religion's faith. Thread locked.