Week of April 24 – Easter facts

The first Easter baskets were made to look like bird’s nests.

The traditional act of painting eggs is called Pysanka.  The custom of giving eggs at Easter time has been traced back to Egyptians, Persians, Gauls, Greeks and Romans, to who the egg was a symbol of life.

In medieval times a festival of egg-throwing was held in church, during which the priest would throw a hard-boiled egg to one of the choir boys. It was then tossed from one choir boy to the next and whoever held the egg when the clock struck 12 was the winner and retained the egg.

Easter is now celebrated on the first Sunday after the full moon which happens on or after March 21, the Spring Equinox.

Easter is the second most important candy-eating occasion of the year for Americans, who consumed 7 billion pounds of candy in 2011, according to the National Confectioner’s Association.

In 1953, it took 27 hours to create a Marshmallow Peep. Today it takes six minutes.

Read more: Easter Candy Facts — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/spot/eastercandy1.html#ixzz1KTWNFs9B

The Germans brought the symbol of the Easter rabbit to America.  The bunny as an Easter symbol seems to have it’s origins in Germany, where it was first mentioned in German writings in the 1500s. The first edible Easter bunnies were made in Germany during the early 1800s. The first bunnies were not made of chocolate; they were made of pastry and sugar.