Easter is one of the most holy festivals celebrated by Christians. Churches all over the world celebrate this day with flowers and filled with devoted worshipers. It is the sacred celebration for the rebirth or resurrection of Christ. According to Christianity, Christ died on Good Friday and his resurrection was then 3 days later.

As a side note, Jews celebrate Passover around the same time as Christians celebrate Easter.

In secular Easter celebrations a Chicken or rabbit is often present.

In the past, Easter was celebrated on different days of the week.  Then later there was a rule created that Easter would be celebrated on Sunday between March 22 and April 25. So the way the date is calculated is that the first Sunday which is after March 21st where there is a full moon, that day is “Easter”. That Easter Sunday is marking the end of lent, which is the tradition of a 40 day period of prayers and fasting.

Easter Symbols

Many symbols are associated with Easter, such as chicks, eggs, rabbits and lilies.  For Instance, The Easter Bunny Rabbit is one of the most renown images of the holiday. Since Rabbits are known to be extremely fertile, hence they are marked as a very important symbol of such festival. In the beginning, the first Easter Bunny rabbits were made out of sugar and pastry.  As years went by, that traditional kept evolving into chocolate created bunnies and then given in celebration to children of the Easter Bunny Rabbit.

One other very popular symbol for this holiday is the Easter egg.  The egg is seen and considered as symbolic for new life.  So Christians during the fasting period gave up the eating of eggs and would resume the eating of eggs on Easter day.  To simply add more glory to the holiday, eggs were then dyed, decorated and colored with many fancy items. Chocolate Easter eggs are most popular with children.  The chocolate Easter eggs come in all sizes, from miniature bite sized eggs to the worlds largest chocolate Easter eggs created in Belgium that are over 27ft tall. Chocolate Easter eggs often are hollow and have treats inside them like toys for the kids.

In the same manner, chicks also represent rebirth and new life.

The holy cross are also decorated with Lilies where the with color of the lily symbolizes the purity of the holiday.

Lilies are used to decorate the holy cross. The white color of lily depicts the purity.

Celebrations

Since this is an important festival, many preparations are done to make this holiday a grand holiday.  The atmosphere does turn joyful, churches light up tons of candles and decorate the church with flowers.  People love to exchange cards, visit families and of course, give an chocolate Easter egg to their children, nieces, nephews and friends, also flowers and gifts, especially chocolates in the shapes of bunnies and eggs.  In some places, parties are being held.  This holiday marks the beginning of new life symbolizing happiness the new spring season.

Chocolate-covered Mexican pastries | What’s cooking?

1 kg all-purpose flour; 2 packages dry yeast; 3/4 cups sugar; 1 tsp salt; 1 TBSP vanilla extract; 4 eggs ; 200 gr margarine; 1 1/3 cups warm water; 1 recipe chocolate coating (see below). The how-to: Dissolve 2 TBSP of sugar in 3/4 cups [...]

The Taylor Tots: Chocolate easter eggs!!!!
I am now taking orders for chocolate Easter eggs with your kids names on them!!! They are great for your kids easter baskets!!! See them on my cake blog sprinklebellecakes.blogspot.com.

How to make Chocolate Easter eggs
Although the Easter bunny doesn’t make an appearance in Italy, there is a tradition of exchanging brightly wrapped chocolate Easter eggs, known as uova [...]