Easter Sunday marks the end of the Christian and Eastern Orthodox Lenten and Easter season. The holiday is known as Resurrection Day by many Christian churches and marks the yearly appearance of the treat bearing Easter Bunny.
Easter has many interesting histories and factoids that have made it what it is today:
- Easter is celebrated at different times by Eastern and Western Christians, due to the Julian calendar.
- The Easter Bunny tradition made its way to the US in the 18th century. It is believed to have originated in Europe where it was actually the Easter Hare.
- The name Easter owes its origin from Eastre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess who symbolizes hare and egg.
- The exchange of eggs for Easter dates to a springtime custom older than Easter itself in which eggs were given as a symbol of rebirth in many cultures.
- Good Friday is an official holiday in 12 states.
- After Halloween, Easter is the biggest candy consuming holiday–120 million pounds of candy are bought each year.
- 90 million chocolate bunnies, 91.4 billion eggs and 700 million peeps are produced each year in the United States.
- Americans consume over 16 million jellybeans on Easter, enough to circle the globe three times over.
- In the old days pretzels were associated with Easter because the twists of the pretzel were thought to resemble arms crossing in prayer.
- To help Americans in need, egg farmers across the country are donating more than 11 million eggs to food banks across the nation during the Easter season.
