Easter is the most important festivity of the year for Christians. On Easter Day Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Easter Day is on the first Sunday after the full moon in March. This day is between 22 March and 25 April. The date is later in the calendar of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Non-Christians like Easter time because soem traditions remind people that nature is coming alive after winner.
The origins of Easter
The modern English word Easter may come from the name of an old northern pagan goddess. The goddess with the most similar name was Eastre, but there were other goddesses with names similar to Easter. They were all goddesses of spring and fertility. Pagans celebrated spring and the beginning of new life with festivals in March and April. When Christianity became important, the Christian Easter gradually replaced pagan festivals. But we still use today some symbols from pagan spring festivals: flowers and eggs were symbols of new life, and rabbits were symbols of fertility.
Easter Today
In the days before Easter American and British schoolchildren sometimes paint Easter eggs with bright colours.Families usually spend Easter Day together. The traditional Easter meal is roast lamb, new potatoes, peas and other vegetables. There are chocolate eggs for children. Some eggs have a surprise in them, others have someone's name on them, and others...just empty chocolate eggs!. Hot cross buns are typical on Good Friday in Britain. They are small, sweet cakes with a cross on top: the cross represents Jesus Christ' s death on the cross.
