Traditionally the Easter Season lasted for the forty days from Easter Day until Ascension Day, but now officially lasts for the fifty days until Pentecost (which means "the fifty days"). Easter also marks the end of Lent, a season of prayer and penance which begins on Ash Wednesday.
The week before Easter, known as Holy Week, is very special in the Christian tradition. The Sunday before Easter is Palm Sunday (Jesus' entry into Jerusalem) and the last three days before Easter are Maundy Thursday (the Last Supper) or Holy Thursday, Good Friday (the Crucifixion) and Holy Saturday (the Easter Vigil).
The Easter Vigil traditionally is Saturday, but many Protestant churches choose to wait until sunrise on Sunday morning to reflect the gospel account of the women coming to the tomb at dawn on the first day of the week. The first recorded "Sunrise Service" took place in 1732 among the Single Brethren in the Moravian Congregation in Saxony (in what is now Germany). Following an all-night vigil, they went before dawn to the town graveyard to celebrate the Resurrection among the graves of the departed. This service was repeated the following year by the whole congregation and subsequently spread with the Moravian Missionaries around the world.
In the Eastern celebrations of Easter, in addition to a fast, a priest leads a procession around a temple until they stop at the front doors (which represents the sealed tomb) then they enter in celebration. Afterwards, the priest blesses baskets of foods (such as eggs) that were forbidden during the fast.
The Easter Bunny and Easter Egg hunts, have become part of the holiday's modern celebrations, and those aspects are often celebrated by many Christians and non-Christians alike. There are also some Christian denominations which do not celebrate Easter because of the pagan-like traditions associated with the season.
In the Western world, the Easter holiday has been partially secularized, so that some families participate only in the attendant revelry, central to which is (traditionally) decorating Easter eggs on Saturday evening and hunting for them Sunday morning, by which time they have been mysteriously hidden all over the house and garden.
The Easter Bunny is very similar in trait to its Christmas holiday counterpart Santa Claus, as they both bring gifts to good children on the night before their respective holiday. The origin of the Easter Bunny is disputed but the character was mentioned as early as 1600. The claim is that Hare and Rabbit were the most fertile animals known and they served as symbols of the new life during the spring season.
The Easter Bunny was introduced to America by the German settlers who arrived during the 1700s. According to the tradition, children would build brightly colored nests, often out of caps and bonnets, in secluded areas of their homes. If the children had been good, the Easter Bunny would lay brightly colored eggs in the nest. As the tradition spread, the nest has become the manufactured, modern Easter basket.
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