How Many Days Until Easter?

Easter is the most important holiday in Christianity, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Unlike most holidays, Easter does not have a fixed date. It falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox, which means it can land anywhere from March 22 to April 25.

This lunar calculation goes back to the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, which set the rule to separate Easter from the Jewish festival of Passover. The result is a holiday that moves around the calender every year, making it hard to plan around without looking it up.

🐣 Easter Traditions

🐰 Where Did the Easter Bunny Come From?

The Easter Bunny tradition came to America with German immigrants in the 1700s. Children would make nests for the bunny to fill with colored eggs, which eventually evolved into decorated baskets. Rabbits became associated with Easter because of their well-known fertility, symbolizing new life and spring.

🌍 How Is Easter Celebrated Around the World?

Easter celebrations vary wildly. In Bermuda, people fly homemade kites on Good Friday to symbolize Christs ascent to heaven. In Sweden and Finland, children dress up as Easter witches and go door to door trading willow twigs for treats. In Haux, France, the town makes a giant omelette using over 4,500 eggs to feed 1,000 people in the town square.

📊 The Economics of Easter

Americans spend roughly $24 billion on Easter each year. Over 16 billion jelly beans are produced (enough to circle the globe three times). Peeps, those marshmallow chicks, have been around since 1953 and over 2 billion are sold each season.

🍫 Why Are Chocolate Easter Bunnies Hollow?

Chocolate eggs and bunnies account for about $2.6 billion in sales. The hollow chocolate bunny was invented because solid ones were simply too expensive to produce. Thats also why 76% of people bite the ears off first, its the thinnest and most accessible part.

🐣 Easter Island Has Nothing to Do With Easter (Sort Of)

Easter Island (Rapa Nui) got its Western name because Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen arrived there on Easter Sunday, April 5, 1722. The island's indigenous Polynesian name is Rapa Nui. The famous moai statues, those giant stone heads you see in the photo, actually have full bodies buried underground. That fact surprised many people when excavation photos went viral in the 2010s. There are 887 moai on the island, carved between roughly 1250 and 1500 AD by the Rapa Nui people. The largest stands over 30 feet tall and weighs 82 tons.