Scholars believe that Easter was named after a festival celebrating Eostre, who was an anglo saxon goddess, and this was a celebration of the coming of spring after winter, it was a pagan festival celebrated long before christianity.
The Easter bunny is said to have been the bird which at one time drew the chariot of the Goddess of Spring and was turned into a hare. Every year however, at the coming of spring the hare remembers, and in commemoration of its original bird nature lays eggs as an offering to Spring.
Eggs symbolise fertility and new life, and the ancient Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and Persians all used dyed eggs in their spring celebrations. It was only natural that the tradition be incorporated into the Christian holiday, which also focuses on rebirth and renewal.
The first ever chocolate Easter egg in the UK was manufactured in 1873 by J.S Fry & Sons, with Cadbury then producing the modern chocolate Easter egg that we know today in 1875,
We all love a good old cream egg and cadburys make 500 million eggs every year! That’s 600,000 eggs an hour, which equals the weight of three elephants. Eggs-trordinary!
If you piled all the Cadbury Creme Eggs made in one year on top of each other, they’d be 10 times taller than Everest!
In Canada (where they’re very popular), Cadbury Creme Eggs are known as Oeuf-fondant.
Easter egg hunts are a great activity you can take part in, whether you have a garden or not.
Simply hide Easter eggs around the garden or around the house and let the rest of the family get hunting. The aim of the game is to collect more eggs than anyone else.
Or if you live alone, simply by enough eggs for a family and hide them around your own home, you will then never run out of chocolate.
Whatever you do this easter holiday, stay safe, call your loved ones and enjoy this time.