Easter Eggs

The tradition of Easter eggs dates back thousands of years. Today chicken eggs are colored, or chocolate eggs decorated with fancy paper wrap. Here's a little bit of history and information about Easter eggs.

In Christianity the egg symbolizes the start of new life – the chick hatches out of an egg. But the Easter egg has a much deeper meaning wrapped around the different aspects of coloring it and giving it. The egg symbolizes the grave, much as Jesus was laid to rest in the grave after his crucifixion. The resurrection is breaking out of the egg, and the red coloring on the egg stood for Christ's blood in the crucifixion. Overall the egg means resurrection, and the new life contained within it.

Easter eggs also have significance in regard to Lent, a period of fasting in the Christian tradition. At one time eggs, like meat, we live in a daze when people would fast. But chickens didn't stop producing eggs just because people weren't eating them. So people would use up all their eggs prior to Lent, and then use up more eggs after Lent by hard boiling them and eating them for many meals.

One tradition with Easter eggs is called egg tapping. And Easter each person has a hard boiled egg, which they tap against other people's eggs. The person whose egg is the last not cracked is the winner. Meanwhile the people whose eggs have cracked eat their eggs.

Today Easter eggs are generally colored with food coloring, then hidden around the house for children to find. Parents tell the little ones that the Easter Bunny has come during the night to hide the eggs, often adding some treats such as jellybeans and chocolate for the children to find. It is even a tradition at the White House to hold an Easter egg hunt, but the Easter eggs in this hunt are generally plastic ones each containing some type of prize inside.

There are even Easter eggs made specially so that the visually impaired can enjoy finding them. These eggs produce clicks and other sounds so people who cannot see can locate them, thus taking part in Easter festivities.

Another Easter tradition is rolling Easter eggs. This is also popular at the White House, as children race to roll their eggs with a spoon. There's really no loser in an event like this.

For more on Easter eggs and all the traditions that surround them try a search on Yahoo or Google.

News About Easter

Easter Island statues have full bodies and contain ancient petroglyphs 15 May 2012 at 6:12pm
Click image to see more photos. (EISP/EISP) Explorers have long known there was more to the 887 statues on Easter Island?some 2,000 miles west of Chile?than just the statue heads made famous in photographs. When most people think of the renowned monolithic statues, they think of the heads only. But in October 2011, the Easter [...]

Inside Easter Island's Secrets 16 May 2012 at 9:09am
The first methodical investigation of the statues at Rapa Nui, which many think of as simple heads, reveals the complete figures buried over centuries by natural forces.

Academic All-Star: Eisenhower senior Jason Easter 16 May 2012 at 10:30pm
Eisenhower High School senior Jason Easter will major in aeronautical engineering. Next year he will go to the University of Washington.

Local communities host Easter activities 17 May 2012 at 11:47pm
Easter is just around the corner and local communities are preparing for a visit from the Easter Bunny.

Easter already carrying presidential load 11 May 2012 at 6:23am
URBANA ? When University of Illinois students walk across the stage Sunday to receive their diplomas, President Michael Hogan will not be there to shake their hands. Instead, Robert Easter, who is the president designate, will congratulate them. Easter also attended UI-Chicago commencement ceremonies and will be at the UI-Springfield commencement this Saturday. read more

Eastern Connecticut Easter Seals group honors civic leader 17 May 2012 at 8:01pm
Easter Seals Capital Region & Eastern Connecticut presented its Civic Leadership award to Jerry G. Olson, primary trustee of Olde Mistick Village, at the annual Walk With Me Kick-Off Celebration Wednesday at Go Fish in Mystic.

The Easter Bunny arrives at Town East Mall 17 May 2012 at 11:42pm
The Easter Bunny is hopping into the area to visit with children at Town East Mall. He arrives on Tuesday, March 13 and will be welcoming visitors until Saturday, April 7 when he leaves to deliver eggs around the world.

Religious leaders say on Easter that faith and politics are inseparable 17 May 2012 at 11:24pm
Influential pastor Rick Warren defended the place of religion in politics during a television interview that aired Sunday morning, arguing that ?faith is simply a world view.? Warren made his statements only a few weeks after a Pew Research Center survey showed 38 percent of Americans -- an all-time high -- believe political leaders spend too much time talking about religion. A majority, 54 ...

Stormont to mark Easter Rising 14 May 2012 at 8:14am
The NI Assembly Commission announces plans to commemorate the 1916 Easter Rising.

Retail Sales in U.S. Cool on Early Easter and Seasonable Weather 15 May 2012 at 5:37am
Retail sales in the U.S. rose in April at the slowest pace of the year, showing unseasonably mild weather and pre-Easter shopping may have pulled consumers to stores the prior month.