Since the name "Easter" is what the pagan holiday was called before Christians 're-did' it, we refer to Easter as "Resurrection Sunday". We go to church and try to remember the real reason for the day amidst all the bunnies, chicks and chocolate. Not that I have anything against chocolate, mind you...

Lu

Since the name "Easter" is what the pagan holiday was called before Christians 're-did' it, we refer to Easter as "Resurrection Sunday". We go to church and try to remember the real reason for the day amidst all the bunnies, chicks and chocolate. Not that I have anything against chocolate, mind you...

Lu

According to my Encyclopedia, the word Easter originally comes from the Greek word for "Passover".

My Encyclopedia also says that Easter 2011 is the 1,978th Easter in History! That's pretty cool!

~Riella

Oh...huh. I heard something different. Wonder which one it is...

It's so amazing when you stop to think about the first Easter!!

Tomorrow, my family was thinking of going to a... Sater? Satar? Not sure of the spelling, but apparently it's a Jewish ceremony. Some Jews for Jesus are putting one on for non-Jews, to demonstrate and explain more of their culture. We thought that would be an interesting thing to do for the holiday.

~Riella

Spending it? I'm going to the Easter service at church and then some friends invited my sister, her boyfriend, and me over for Easter dinner and the rest of the day. So I'm frantically (Ok, not really, I'm on here, aren't I?) trying to get tons of homework done before then.

Special meaning? Well, I'm a Christian so I believe that Christ Jesus died for my sins and was resurrected on Easter Sunday so yea, that's a very special meaning for me!

Memory? My little brother. He was born on Easter 14 years ago. He ticks me off and annoys me a lot but all-in-all, he's not a bad brother and I love him.

Foods? I don't know. We don't eat dinner on Sundays. We normally have breakfast, lunch, and then snacks the rest of the day. We normally don't eat anything different that day then any other Sunday.

Riella, that sounds very interesting about the Sater(sp?). You'll have to tell us how it goes.

Lu

What is everyone planning on eating on Easter? My family is having ham and potatoes and cranberry sauce, I think.

~Riella

The Jewish festival is the Passover seder.

Every account I've seen shows the name Easter to have come from Eostre an Anglo-Saxon Germanic goddess of fertility, as attested to by the Venerable Bede:

Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated "Paschal month", and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old

When I was a kid, we always had lamb. I've heard it's an English custom, replaced by ham in America. And new potatoes and spring peas, for new life.

Oh, and hot cross buns baked by my grandmother- I can smell them now....

And while we didn't follow Lent, we did abstain from meat on Good Friday- which was no hardship: take-away fish and chips, yum (we didn't get to eat out a lot)

The various dictionaries I've consulted offer a definition similar to the one Graymouser has provided.

A number of years ago, a local group (perhaps Jews for Jesus) offered an overview of the Passover seder for Gentiles, explaining how each of the various foods and other elements tie into the New Testament fullfillment of Christ as our Passover. It was quite fascinating. It sounds like the one you're attending, Ithilwen. Enjoy!

Trivia: to a lage extent, determining the date of Easter is why we have the calendar we use today. In the Middle Ages, fixing the date of this high holy day was crucial, and scholars noticed the seasons weren't quite matching the Julian calendar then in use. Hence Pope Gregory decreed calendar reform to fix this problem, and so we use the Gregorian calendar today.

My birthday falls in April, so even as a kid I was curious as to when it might fall on Easter. It turns out I had to wait until I was 50 years old for it to happen (in 2007). And thanks to a leap year and the moon, it'll happen again just 5 years later - next year! After that it's a long wait.

(Check out the dates here).

I'll be visiting family this Easter; with other siblings and their families in attendance it should be a full house! I believe ham and the trimmings are on the menu.

I will be eating lamb cake and watching Passion Of The Christ.

I will be eating lamb cake ...

I still have the metal tin my mum used to make a full lamb cake. The memory is great. That and how the dog counter-surfed and bit the head of the cake one year.

We had the family tradition of coloring eggs and placing them in baskets the night before easter. We then had to hunt for these baskets after church. I did not understand till I was seven that my mother was the one that hid the baskets. The coloring of the eggs is a tradition I carry into now with Rachel Marie.

Of bunny and traditions connected to easter that have fortunately lost original meaning - this little one was rescued by a local family. Appears to be a little jack rabbit and is very tame now.

And then I just have to be a little creepy and do something like this:

The words my partner uttered? "Help me."

HAPPY EASTER!!!

How will you be spending it? Going to church, spending time with family, eating jelly beans!

What special meaning do these holidays have for you? Weeell it all comes down to the Stone Table if you know what I mean.

Well, my family is Messianic Jewish so we celebrate Passover. We just had our seder last night, which was great.

Haha, I have to admit, when you guys were talking about a Satar I was kind of confused, but yes, Graymouser is right, it's the Passover seder, a dinner where we read the story of the Exodus from Egypt and do the blessings and everything.

We went to our church this morning for Easter Sunday but other than that we don't really do anything for Easter, since we discuss Yeshua's sacrifice for us at Passover.

I did go to church today. Did not ring bells and went to the celebration in the Family Center. Did drop off groceries for the pantry.