12 Fascinating Easter Facts For Kids 2023
Easter is a yearly Christian festival that honors the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Three days after being crucified, dying, and buried, He resurrected from the dead. According to tables based in Western churches on the Gregorian calendar and Orthodox churches on the Julian calendar, Easter is observed on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox. It usually falls between 21 March and 25 April and is the most important and oldest festival of the Christian Church.
Easter is significant because of Jesus Christ’s conquest over death. For those who believe in Him, His resurrection represents the gift of eternal life.
12 facts about Easter Festival!
Easter is the oldest Christian Holiday.
Easter was first observed as a holiday in honor of Jesus Christ’s resurrection, although its roots lie in a long-ago pagan festival. Christians mark this day as a celebration of their religion’s pinnacle moment. The custom of Easter dates back to the springtime celebration Semiramis (the queen regent of the Assyrian Empire) started after Tammuz died, allegedly at the hands of a wild boar. According to legend, Tammuz was “resurrected” as the fresh greenery that emerged on the soil, thanks to the strength of his mother’s tears.
The commemoration of Jesus’ Resurrection was presumably observed earlier, but the Church only mentioned the first Easter celebration in the 2nd century. For Christians, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ approximately 2,000 years ago serve as the sole source of Easter. According to the Gospel stories, the Jewish Passover was when Jesus Christ, the real Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament, was crucified and raised from the dead. Those who consider Christ their Messiah has commemorated the day, frequently celebrating it with the customary Passover celebration.
Easter gets its name from a fertility goddess.
Many historians think Christians named Easter after the pagan Anglo-Saxon goddess Eastre or Eostre to promote conversion. Easter was originally the celebration of Ishtar, the Assyrian and Babylonian fertility goddess. Like the Christian equivalent, Eastre celebrations announced the arrival of spring following winter’s protracted dormancy.
Each year, Easter is celebrated on a different date.
The holiday should fall on the first Sunday following the Paschal Full Moon, the first full moon following the vernal equinox. The church always observes the vernal equinox on March 21, even though the Old Farmer’s Almanac states that the precise date can change yearly.
The dates of Passover and Easter vary yearly because the Jewish calendar is based on solar and lunar cycles. Consequently, why does Easter follow the Paschal Full Moon? Because Christ’s death and resurrection occurred after the Jewish holiday, early Christians wanted Easter to fall on the same day as Passover.
Each day leading up to Easter Sunday has its own significance.
The week leading up to Easter Sunday is called the Holy Week, and each day of this week bares some significance to the festival. It is a week filled with devotion and passion for the Lord Almighty’s son, Jesus Christ. It is known as the Great Week in the Greek and Roman liturgical texts because God performed great deeds during this week. Maundy Thursday is one of them; it honors the Last Supper that Jesus had with his apostles. Another is the commemoration of His Crucifixion on Good Friday. The day between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection is known as Holy Saturday.
White Lilies are the official flower of the festival.
The white lily, also known as an Easter lily, is a flower that frequently appears in the Bible and represents purity, rebirth, new beginnings, and hope. It is most commonly connected with the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter. The Easter lily symbolizes motherhood in Pagan customs and is frequently given to mothers as a token of appreciation. The white lilies are emblems of purity and grace in numerous religions and ideologies.
Lilies are thought to have sprung from the ground where Christ’s blood and tears fell during his crucifixion and in the Garden of Gethsemane following his betrayal. They are sometimes referred to as “white-robed apostles of hope.”
The Easter Bunny is the holiday’s official mascot!
The Easter Bunny has a lengthy, firmly established history in Christianity that even dates back to paganism. The celebration of Eostre, which honored the goddess of fertility and spring, is where people first used the rabbit symbol in the old pagan ritual that served as the foundation for many Easter customs. The goddess’s animal representation was a rabbit, which has long been associated with fertility because of its propensity for reproduction.
In Germany throughout the Middle Ages, hares and eggs were symbols of fertility, and it was then that the myth of an egg-laying, candy-giving rabbit originated. The German immigrants to Pennsylvania in the 1700s imported their custom of an egg-laying hare called “Oschter Haws” from the Old Country. According to legend, good children would receive colorful eggs from the Easter Bunny as gifts. Therefore, kids would build nests for the bunny to lay his eggs in and occasionally even place carrots out in case the hare became hungry. Eventually, the practice grew until it became a well-known Easter custom.
People hunt for eggs on easter Sunday.
An Easter egg hunt involves hiding Easter eggs or decorating eggs for kids to find. Most households hide real hard-boiled eggs, frequently painted or dyed plastic eggs packed with candy or chocolate, or chocolate eggs of various sizes that are foil-wrapped, all around their backyards for kids and adults alike to find. Typically, a basket is used by the kids to collect the eggs. Although individuals can play indoors, the game is frequently played outside. At the end of the search, gifts are given for various accomplishments, including the most eggs collected, the largest or tiniest egg, the most eggs of a particular hue, consolation prizes, etc.
The Easter Egg decorating custom began in Ukraine.
While dyeing eggs for Easter may have started as a religious custom, decorating eggs is a long-standing Ukrainian tradition that dates back centuries. These Ukrainian Easter eggs, referred to as pysanky, are made using the wax-resist (batik) technique. People can find these beautifully decorated eggs all over eastern Europe. The designs used to decorate them are frequently derived from Slavic folk art. Pysanka is so significant to Ukrainian culture that some researchers believe it may have even been created in prehistoric times. Folklore holds that pysanky may prevent evil from devouring the entire planet, and archaeologists have discovered decorated pottery eggs to support this belief.
People initially dyed Easter eggs red to represent Christ’s blood.
Easter eggs are colored red in the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches to signify the blood of Christ. The egg’s hard shell also represents the sealed Tomb of Christ, and its cracking represents his ascension from the dead. In some households, they are the first meal after Lent’s rigorous fasting, while in others, they are enjoyed after dinner when everyone is gathered to play the egg hunting game.
The egg represents rebirth, while the color red represents the blood and death of Christ on the cross. The first red egg that is colored is thought to be the egg of the Virgin Mary and is kept in the house until the following year when another “first egg” is dyed as protection against the evil eye.
The largest Easter egg hunt was held in 2007 in Florida.
Nothing screams “Easter” like sifting through a backyard in pursuit of as many brightly colored Easter eggs as possible. Easter egg hunts may be perceived by many as an activity best enjoyed by small children, but many adults also find them to be fun. Nothing can compare to the Guinness World Records’ Largest Easter Egg Hunt in the world, regardless of how little your backyard or community hunt may be. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the greatest Easter egg hunt occurred in Florida‘s Cypress Gardens Adventure Park, with 9,753 kids and adults looking for 501,000 eggs.
The biggest decorated Easter egg is over 7000 kgs!
A chocolatier in Tosca, Italy, created the world’s biggest chocolate egg, which stands at 10.39 meters tall, weighs 7,200 kg, and has a circumference of 19.6 meters. This enormous egg is constructed from welded steel rather than chocolate. Before the official record attempt, the framework and shell took 48 days to build.
The world’s most expensive Easter egg is approximately $33 Million!
The Russian royal family acquired a set of 50 ornately adorned Easter eggs known as the Russian Fabergé Eggs in the late 19th century. The royal family lost a large portion of the initial collection of eggs during the Russian Revolution in 1917. These eggs were acquired by international private collectors and museums a few years later. But it took almost a century after its last sighting before one of the collection’s oldest and possibly most costly eggs were unearthed.
On behalf of an unnamed collector, the egg was sold to British antique dealer Wartski in 2014 at a London auction. Although the dealer withheld the price they paid, estimations place the egg’s value as high as $33 million, making it the most valuable Fabergé Egg to ever trade on the private market.
Conclusion
Apart from the fun egg hunts and Easter bunnies, everyone who follows Christianity has a special connection to the holiday. Various nations and civilizations have different ideas about what Easter is all about. They each have rituals for celebrating it and multiple interpretations of its original significance.