Easter is the most joyous of Christian holidays. It is celebrated in commemoration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.The exact day on which Easter falls may vary from year to year, but it always comes, of course, in the spring of the year. Thus, Christianity spread, the celebration of Easter included many customs that were linked with the celebration of spring's arrival. This explains why many Easter customs go back to traditions that existed before Christianity itself.Both Easter and the coming of Spring are symbols of new life. The ancient Egyptians and Persians celebrated their spring festivals by coloring and eating eggs. The Christians adopted the egg as symbolic of new life, the symbol of the Resurrection.There is another reason why we observe the practise of eating eggs on Easter Sunday and of giving them as gifts to friends or children. In the eartly days of the Church, eggs were forbidden food during Lent. With the ending of Lent, people were so glad to see and eat eggs again that they made it tradition to eat them on Easter Sunday.The Easter hare also was part of the spring celebrations long before Christianity. In the legends of ancient Egypt, the hare is associated with the moon. The hare is linked with the night because it comes out only then to feed. By being associated with the moon, the hare became a symbol of a new period of life. Thus the hare stood for the renewal of life and for fertility. The early Christians therefore took it over and linked it with Easter, the holiday that symbolizes new life!By the way, the rotation of wearing new clothes on Easter Sunday is also Symbolic of casting off the old and the beginning of the new!
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