Easter Sunday

Easter is the central celebration of the resurrection of Jesus in Christianity. Its date is determined through an ecclesiastical calendar connected to the spring equinox and lunar cycle, so Western Easter falls on a Sunday between late March and late April. Christian communities brought varied Easter practices to North America from the colonial period onward.

In the United States, worship traditions developed alongside seasonal customs involving eggs, new clothing, flowers and the Easter Bunny. Immigration added foods and ceremonies from many cultures. Easter remains a major religious festival, but it is not a U.S. federal holiday and many secular households participate in selected family traditions.

One especially American strand came through German-speaking settlers in Pennsylvania. Their Easter hare was said to leave colored eggs in nests prepared by children, a custom documented through art and later folklore accounts. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, confectionery, greeting cards and community egg hunts helped the figure spread far beyond Pennsylvania Dutch communities. That history is better supported than popular attempts to trace the bunny directly to an ancient pagan goddess.