You might have been on an Easter egg hunt or eaten a chocolate bunny to celebrate the holiday, but how much do you know about where Easter traditions came from?
Everyone is familiar with the Christmas tree, but not so much with its springtime cousin, the Easter tree.
Towns in Germany and Austria have been known for these colorful creations. Discover more about these Easter tree traditions...
All around the world, Easter is celebrated in different ways, but there's one colorful element that is universally included... the flower!
As Easter coincides with the start of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, lilies, tulips, daisies, and daffodils have become popular Easter flowers. Find out more about how this tradition has bloomed all over the world.
It’s not clear why it’s a tradition to eat sweetened bread at Easter, but people don’t usually mind an excuse to enjoy a delicious pastry.
One baked good that is popular at Easter is the hot cross bun: a sweet, spiced bread made with raisins or sultanas. Have a look
at the tasty traditions around the world.
Rewind 200-years-ago and the only eggs you would find at Easter were real ones. By the 19th century however, French and German confectioners hatched a clever plan to create a sweeter treat.
By the time Cadbury started making chocolate eggs in 1905, this tradition had gone global. Fast forward to present day, millions of chocolate eggs are enjoyed every year in the UK alone. Discover the story
of how chocolate makers cracked Easter.
Children around the world might be familiar with the frenzied hunt for chocolate eggs hidden by the Easter Bunny.
This developed from a Christian Easter tradition – which commemorates the resurrection of Jesus – to incorporate the Easter Bunny. Find out more about how the bunny hopped into Easter celebrations around the world.
Move over Easter Bunny, there’s a new creature in town! In Australia, it’s all about the Easter Bilby, a small marsupial with long ears, a pointy snout, a black and white tail, and gray fur.
As rabbits weren't a native species and caused huge amounts of environmental damage when Europeans brought them over in 1788, it's no surprise that Aussie’s decided to celebrate the bilby instead. Get to know
more about this rabbit-eared bandicoot.
In France, on the Thursday before Easter, church bells fall silent. Why? According to tradition, they’ve sprouted wings and flown to Italy to collect colored eggs to distribute to children back in France. Discover more about this unique tradition.
To the relief of dentists, not all Easter celebrations involve eating sugar. In fact, in many places around the world it’s far more common to decorate a real egg.
This is a much-beloved activity for families around the globe, who also have varying decorating traditions unique to their culture. Find out more
about how the egg comes out of its shell at Easter.
All around the world, cultures observe Easter in different ways but there’s one tradition that is universal: the flower. For the Northern Hemisphere, Easter coincides with the start of spring, where flowers begin to bloom and the trees begin to bud.
This natural display of new life is hard to miss, so even below the equator where the seasons are changing from summer to autumn, Easter festivities still incorporate flowers. Just like eggs, fluffy yellow chicks, and bunnies, flowers represent fresh beginnings and rebirth.
Homes and shops everywhere make the most of this seasonal burst of color by displaying vibrant arrangements of flowers throughout the Easter celebrations. Easter meals often include a floral centerpiece on the table and churches host elaborate flower festivals as a symbolic nod to the resurrection.
Popular Easter flowers even hold varying meanings. White lilies are considered a very traditional Easter flower as they are an ancient symbol of the resurrection, representing purity and hope. The daffodil is a common first sign of spring across the world and in Germany are known as the “Easter bells”. Other popular symbols include the tulip, the daisy, and the azalea.
Around Spain and other Latin American countries, extravagant processions are commonplace at Easter (known as Semana Santa, or Holy Week) where parade floats of intricate religious scenes are embellished with bright clusters of flowers.
Processions also take place in the Philippines, where children dress as angels and throw flowers on passers-by. Another widespread custom involves palm fronds ( palaspas ) blessed on Palm Sunday, which are believed to ward off bad luck, lightning, and fires if displayed in the home for the following year.
On the night before Easter Sunday in Ouro Preto, Brazil, flower petals are used to create a 4km-long colorful carpet that stretches along the streets of the town. The petals are arranged into intricate patterns together with sand and colored sawdust, creating a path for the Semana Santa procession to walk from church to church the next day.
A similar tradition takes place across Guatemala, where the streets are lined with carefully laid out flowers, as well as fruits and vegetables. Many people work overnight to have these elaborate floral artworks in place for the celebrations the following morning.
Fur real
The forensic detail of Dürer's painting can be seen in particular in his depiction of the hare's fur.
Hyper-realistic hare
Created in watercolor and gouache, this work has been regarded as a great example of observational art.
Look a little closer...
Can you see the artist's workshop windows reflected in the hare's eye?
What About This Famous Hare?
Click on the dots to zoom into Albrecht Dürer's painting
Learn more about the artworkTo the relief of dentists, not all Easter customs involve eating copious amounts of sugar. In fact, in many places around the world it’s far more common to decorate a real egg than eat a chocolate one .
Although this might be a less delicious way of celebrating, dyeing and painting eggs is a much-beloved way for families and communities to spend time together and share traditions unique to their culture.
Why eggs? Eggs have long been associated with springtime because they signify new life, fertility, and rebirth. Eventually, Christianity also adopted them as a symbol of Easter, as they provided a fitting metaphor for the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Historically during Lent, the period of fasting just before Easter, Christians would abstain from eating eggs for 40 days (today, it’s more common for individuals to choose what they’d like to give up themselves). Given this, any eggs that were laid during the Lenten season were hard boiled so they could either be kept or decorated and given as gifts to others.
Different countries have their own ways of decorating their Easter eggs and even find different uses for them once painted/dyed, particularly in Eastern Europe. The Slovenian eggs, known as pirhi, were traditionally made by girls and given as a token of love to their sweethearts.
In parts of Greece, eggs are dyed red and sometimes baked whole into loaves of bread . The decorated eggs of Lithuania (called margučiai) were given as gifts to bring their bearer good luck. In Romania, friends and family will tap their painted eggs together and whomever’s egg doesn’t break will supposedly enjoy the longest life.
While some cultures simply boil an egg with food coloring or a natural dye such as onion skin, some processes require a high level of skill and patience to complete intricate designs. In Poland, there are many different techniques for decorating eggs, such as carving directly into the shell (drapanki eggs) or crocheting pouches that can be used to hang them (dzierganki eggs).
One of the most advanced methods is batik, where markings are added using wax and then the egg is submerged in dye to color the exposed shell (pisanki eggs). The process is repeated, with the motifs in the lightest color done first and the darkest dye done last, resulting in vibrant layers of pattern.
In Slovenia, the type of designs drawn on the egg varies from region to region. The traditional patterns used in the southerly region of Bela Krajina are geometric, incorporating crosses, spirals, shapes, dots, and straight, wavy, and zig-zag lines. These iconic black and red patterns are passed down from generation to generation and can take up to two hours to complete. Further west, the patterns are more nature-themed and include clover, daisies, grapes, and birds.
However, the prize for the most ornate Easter egg goes to the Fabergé eggs of Russia. These bejeweled creations were made by the House of Fabergé between 1885 and 1917 for the Russian Tsars Alexander III and Nicholas II to give to their wives and mothers at Easter.
The elaborate eggs were often made from gold with each separate one containing a unique surprise – the first ever Fabergé egg contained a tiny diamond replica of the crown and a small ruby pendant. Just don’t expect the Easter Bunny to bring you one of those…
Rewind 200-years-ago and the only eggs you would find being passed around at Easter were real ones (albeit beautifully decorated ). It wasn’t until the early 19th century that confectioners hatched a clever plan to create an alternative sweet version.
French and German chocolatiers are credited with inventing the chocolate egg, although they were very dark and bitter when first produced. Chocolate was so expensive at the time, that eggs were exclusively enjoyed by the wealthy. The Easter eggs that were available were also completely solid, as manufacturers hadn’t yet found a way to easily mold chocolate.
In 1828, the Dutch inventor Van Houten invented a press that could efficiently separate the cocoa butter needed to make smoother, moldable chocolate from the cocoa bean. Then, in 1866, the Cadbury brothers introduced a method for producing cocoa butter in large quantities. Now chocolate eggs could easily be mass produced and the eggs could be made hollow, ready to be filled with sugared almonds or sweets.
The sale of chocolate at Easter was truly secured as an Easter tradition when Cadbury introduced milk chocolate eggs in 1905, which proved to be hugely popular. Nowadays, around 80 million eggs are sold each Easter in the UK alone.
Simpler eggs, such as the ones you are likely to find in supermarkets wrapped in brightly colored foil or paper, normally have a straightforward crocodile print exterior, a technique pioneered by a German chocolatier to disguise imperfections. However, if you walk into a fancy chocolate shop over Easter you’ll likely see an ornately embellished creation, patterned with chocolate piping and marzipan.
You found them
And look, one is trying to run away!
Not here
These look like a different kind of bird...
No eggs here
Only a fish stopping by for lunch
Look again
No eggs in sight here
Pick again
These eggs obviously don't like heights...