Carol Stovold Quality Kidz qualitykidz.co.nz

By Carol Stovold, managing director, Quality Kidz and president of NZ Homebased Early Childhood Education Association

With Easter coming up it seemed appropriate to share the research we conducted with children in care on the origin of Easter eggs and the Easter Bunny – in case your children ask as well. The word Easter is named after Eastre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring. A festival was held in the northern hemisphere in her honour every year at the vernal equinox. People celebrate Easter according to their beliefs and their religious denominations. Christians commemorate Good Friday as the day Jesus Christ died and Easter Sunday as the day He was resurrected.

In pagan times the egg represented fertility and rebirth. Christians consider eggs to be 'the seed of life” and were also adopted as part of the Christian Easter festival and it came to represent the resurrection or rebirth of Christ after the crucifixion. Some believe it is a symbol of the stone blocking the Sepulcher being rolled away.

Colouring eggs
Why we dye or colour and decorate eggs is not certain. In ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and Persia, eggs were dyed for spring festivals. In medieval Europe, beautifully decorated eggs were given as gifts. In the UK and Europe the earliest Easter eggs were painted and decorated – hen, duck or goose eggs – a practice still carried out in parts of the world today. As time went by, artificial eggs were made and by the end of the 17th century, manufactured eggs were available for purchase at Easter for giving as gifts and presents.

Easter eggs continued to evolve through the 18th and into the 19th century with hollow cardboard Easter eggs filled with gifts and sumptuously decorated, culminating with the fabulous Faberge Eggs. Encrusted with jewels, they were made for the Czars of Russia by Carl Faberge, a French jeweller.

The chocolate Easter egg
It was in the early 1800s when the first chocolate Easter egg appeared in Germany and France and soon spread to the rest of Europe and beyond. The first chocolate eggs were solid and hollow eggs soon followed, although making hollow eggs at that time was no mean feat because the easily worked chocolate we use today didn't exist then. They had to use a paste made from ground roasted cacao beans.
By the turn of the 19th century, the discovery of the modern chocolate making process and improved mass manufacturing methods meant the chocolate Easter egg was fast becoming the Easter gift of choice in the UK and parts of Europe and by the 1960s it was well established worldwide.

Who is the Easter Bunny?
The Easter Bunny is a rabbit-spirit. Long ago, he was called the Easter Hare. Hares and rabbits have frequent multiple births so they became a symbol of fertility. The custom of an Easter egg hunt began because children believed hares laid eggs in the grass. So there you go – everything you need to know about Easter eggs and bunnies to share with the children. Happy Easter.

Next week – Healthy Easter alternatives.