Hoppy Easter and all that jazz

Today's the day. That's right...the day that as the close of business comes to your friendly neighborhood Walgreens/CVS, the Easter candy goes on clearance. The only thing better than Peeps and Cadbury Mini Eggs are both of those items at half price. Yesssss. By the end of next week, they will be darn near giving the things away. Sadly by then the only thing usually left are those bunny-shaped confections that somewhat resemble circus peanuts...and probably taste like them. (I've not been brave enough to try them). But hey, for someone's cheap sugar rush, they'll do.

At a family dinner recently we were discussing the upcoming Easter holiday and where exactly the tradition of the Easter bunny, eggs and all the trappings came from. No one seemed to have a good answer.

So today, I decided to search the "internets" for some info, and I went to the source where I find many of my facts.

Yes, I looked it up on Wikipedia.

In case anyone wants to read up on the Easter Bunny, they've got a great article on it as well as many of the other Easter traditions.

The long and the short of it is that, like many of the holiday rituals we celebrate, the tradition of rabbits, eggs, etc. came from the Pagans. The time of the year of Jesus's crucifiction/resurrection happens to coincide with the Vernal Equinox, so somehow throughout the course of time the two items got melded together.

The issue of eggs, which were once considered sacred (since all life begins from an egg) are perhaps the only Easter tradition that actually has a religious origin. The egg tradition in the Spring dates all the way back to ancient Greece, though it was the Catholics who ritualized it very early on in the genesis of the faith. They then associated it with Easter, and first began the tradition of coloring them way back in the 17th-18th century.

Ironically enough, eggs were-and to those more dogmatic still are-forbidden foods during the fasting period of Lent. That came in seemingly pretty handy, leaving plenty of eggs to color.

In the words of the immortal Homer Simpson, "God bless those Pagans."

Happy Easter!