Easter is soon upon us (April 16 to be exact) and despite the usual chocolate bunnies, jelly beans, and other sweet treats, Easter egg hunts are still the most popular tradition. If you stop and really think about it, it’s a bit odd — someone hides a bunch of eggs and we suddenly turn into our 10-year-old selves, trying to find them as many as we can to fill up our baskets. But the question is…why?
OK, let’s try to get to the bottom of this beloved tradition.
Egg as a symbol. While Easter is a religious holiday, the egg is more likely a pagan tradition. For Christians, the egg symbolizes Jesus’ resurrection and emergence from the tomb (a rebirth if you will). Decorating the egg — a forbidden food during Lent season — symbolized celebrating the end of a season of fasting.
Hunting for eggs. Truth be told, there’s actually not much out there to be said as to why we hunt for eggs, which kind of makes it all the more fun and ridiculous that this tradition had been around for years. What we do know is that it originated in Germany (well…sort of). In Germany, children would wait for Osterhase (the German version of the Easter bunny), to leave eggs in the the nests that children left in the gardens. On Easter Sunday, the children would search for their nests to see what eggs the Osterhase left behind. As Germans immigrated to America, they brought their Easter tradition with them, and thus, the Easter egg hunt was born (with slight adjustments, of course).
xx, The FabFitFun Team
