Growing up Easter had to be one of my favorite holidays as it meant chocolate, good food, family, and Easter egg dying and the following hunt in the morning. It wasn’t until I was much older that I began to understand what the religious meaning of the holiday was and where these societal traditions came from, here’s just a few facts about Easter:
· The Easter bunny that delivers chocolate eggs is actually something of a debate. But when it comes to the Easter bunny in America, the tradition is thought to come from German immigrants in the 1700s. Much like today, children would make nests for the bunny to lay its colored eggs and other goods in the morning, which is how we got Easters baskets.
· The Easter egg stems from a pagan tradition of the egg representing new life during spring, for the Christian religion the egg stands for the crucifixion and the resurrection. Decorating Easter eggs goes all the way back since the 13th century and has been around for some time in America, with the first ever White House Easter Egg Roll being established in 1847 by then president Rutherford B. Hays.
· Now, Easter candy is the second highest candy selling date besides Halloween. There are a lot of popular candy traditions such as chocolate eggs, jellybeans, or Peeps. Chocolates date back to be associated with Easter since early 19th century, but Peeps did not start selling until the 1950’s. According to the National Confectioners Association, over 16 billion jellybeans are made in the U.S. each year for Easter, enough to fill a giant egg measuring 89 feet high and 60 feet wide.