The meaning of Bunnies and Eggs......Easter

Next to Christmas and Birthdays, Easter is a day of the year that most children look forward to. With bunnies, egg hunts, and baskets full of treats, what is not to love?

Similar to the idea of Santa Claus, Easter bunnies are believed by little ones to come with gifts the evening before the actual day of Easter. However, unlike Christmas, where it falls on the 25th of December every year, Easter day involves a bit more thinking.

To calculate the yearly Easter Sunday, you find out when the next full moon after March 21 or Vernal equinox is. The Sunday after that full moon is Easter day.

The symbolism

But you may get the question where does the Easter Bunny come from?

Easter is a Christian celebration of the day Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Hence, the idea of “new life,” “new beginnings”, “rebirth”, and so forth. However, the Christians weren’t the first to accept the idea of the Easter bunny. The Germans wrote about the symbolism of the Easter bunny in the 1500s, where they referenced the Anglo Saxons worship of the goddess, Eastre. The goddess, Eastre is known for the renewal of life at springtime and the symbol of the Rabbit, and its eggs for fertility as the Chickens and Rabbits are known to be some of the most fertile animals in the world.

In the 1700s German settlers introduced the idea of making children believe that if they were good, they would be visited by the Easter bunny, who would reward them with colored eggs. The children would prepare for this event by building nests and even making them uniquely decorated so as to please the Easter bunny. As time past, the nests became more beautiful until it eventually turned into nice baskets to place the nicely colored eggs in.

Today, eggs are made with pure chocolate, fun- filled with cream, painted, colored, made of plastic, and every possible fun way an egg can be made.

If the beauty of the egg doesn’t distract your little one’s curious mind, you can breathe a sigh of relief that you now know how the Easter bunny relates to spring, Christianity, and the tradition. It is up to you to make the story as understandable and possibly as fun as you can make it.

On that note we had some fun with our friends and their kids last year. We did the usual Easter egg hunt in the back yard and then we did the Piñata we do every year. But instead of filling the Piñata with goodies we filled it with Brussel Sprouts! Imagine the kids “delight” when all the Sprouts came tumbling out

Have a wonderful Easter!