Happy Friday,
There’s a big billboard that goes up this time every year where I live. We have to drive past it every time kiddo and I go anywhere.
The background is orange. The rest is silhouette. A grassy hill, a cross and a bunny. All in silhouette. With giant lettering that says “It’s not about the bunny.”
Every time we drive past it, kiddo says, “It is so about the bunny. Easter comes from Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring.”
I laugh.
Well, if it does, I have a bone to pick with Eostre.
Because it’s snowing here.
Other people argue that there was no pagan goddess, it was made up, and Easter comes from the German tradition of Osterhase.
I don’t know if that’s true, either.
Eggs were either a fertility symbol, or maybe the protein we ate because meat isn’t allowed during Lent, or they were painted to symbolize the blood of Christ, or maybe they turned colored all on their own as a miracle of the resurrection.
We’re not really sure— but Cadbury made the first chocolate egg in 1875.
In 1800s New York, people believed wearing new clothing on Easter was good luck. If you didn’t buy new clothing, you’d have bad luck the rest of the year.
So they’d all go shopping and parade down the streets in their new clothing to signify the resurrection. That’s how Easter parades started. lol. Also, yay capitalism.
In Switzerland, the history of Easter is more like Halloween in North America. Kids dressed up as witches and went door to door collecting chocolate and eggs.
Here’s the funniest part.
The date.
Apparently, despite collectively agreeing the birth of baby Jesus would be celebrated every year on December 25, we were less able to remember the date he died and was resurrected.
I cannot imagine remembering someone’s death by the lunar cycle, but apparently we did? Uh — yeah, it was the Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox.
That itself makes me laugh.
We humans are so bizarre.
Yesterday I called a client and asked if they close Good Friday. He said no, we don’t observe religious holidays. So I said Christmas isn’t religious, then?
At least he laughed.
Apparently, the only thing we mostly agree on is how to eat a chocolate bunny. I don’t know how someone got paid to study the eating of chocolate bunnies, but according to a consumer study, 22% of us eat the feet or butt first. 78% eat the ears first.
At least there’s something most of us can agree on.
Happy Easter.
xo,
Linda
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It's just so easy to start with the ears. They stick up in the air like a lollipop on a stick. Who can resist that?
I appreciate the history lessons AND the laughs about eating the bunny ears first. Who knew? Who really cares?
What I want to know about eating chocolate bunnies is this: for a small-to-moderate sized bunny, who doesn't eat the whole thing? Those gigantic 1+ footers are not included in this question. Who will fund that study? Weight Watchers, perhaps.