Easter Holiday and Traditions

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Easter is a religious holiday that celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ three days after his death by crucifixion about 2,000 years ago. For Christians, Easter is a day of religious services and the gathering of family. In many churches Easter comes after a season of prayer, abstinence, and fasting called Lent. This is observed in memory of the 40 days' fast of Christ in the desert. In Eastern Orthodox churches Lent is 50 days. In Western Christen religions Lent is observed for six weeks and four days.

Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, gets its name from the practice, mostly in the Roman Catholic church, of putting ashes on the foreheads of the faithful to remind them that "man is but dust." Palm Sunday, one week before Easter, celebrates the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. Holy Week begins on this day. Holy Thursday, or Maundy Thursday, is in memory of the Last Supper of Christ with his disciples. Good Friday remembers the crucifixion.

Lent may be preceded by a carnival season. Detailed pageants often close this season on Shrove Tuesday, the day before the beginning of Lent. This day is also called by its French name, Mardi Gras.

The name Easter comes from Eostre (pronounced yo'ster), an ancient Anglo-Saxon goddess. In pagan times an annual spring festival was held in her honor. Some Easter customs have come from this and other pre-Christian spring festivals. Others come from the Passover feast of the Jews, observed in memory of their deliverance from Egypt.

Formerly, Easter and the Passover were closely associated. The resurrection of Jesus took place during the Passover. Christians of the Eastern church initially celebrated both holidays together. But the Passover can fall on any day of the week, and Christians of the Western church preferred to celebrate Easter on Sunday, the day of the resurrection.

The Easter Bunny is a popular image of the holiday. According to legend, the bunny was originally a large, handsome bird belonging to Eostre, the Goddess of Spring. Eostre is also known as Ostara, a Goddess of fertility who is celebrated at the time of the Spring equinox. She changed the bird into a rabbit, which explains why the Easter bunny builds a nest and fills it with colored eggs. The first edible Easter bunnies were made in Germany during the early 1800s. They were made of pastery and sugar.
Around the time of the Civil War, Americans began to celebrate Easter in the same way as Europeans, with children building nests for the Easter bunny to fill with eggs.

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