Happy Easter!

Its Easter morning and parents of young children around the world have hidden Easter Baskets filled with colored eggs, candy, and chocolate bunnies. Children everywhere are scurrying with excitement to find their baskets and many participate in an Easter egg hunt.
As I sit here this morning enjoying my coffee, I wondered…so how did all this come about? Easter Baskets, colored eggs, the Easter Bunny? Where did we get this giant rabbit who lays multicolored eggs? There has got to be some history. This is what I found.
Hundreds of years ago, "many pagan cultures held spring festivals." One such festival was devoted to "Eostre, the goddess of dawn," and this Eostre was "linked to the hare and the egg, both symbols of fertility."
The ancient Saxons celebrated the return of spring with a festival honoring their goddess of springtime, Eostre. When the second-century Christian missionaries encountered the tribes of the north with their pagan celebrations, they attempted to convert them to Christianity.
Early Christians celebrated their holy days with observances that coincided with celebrations that already existed. Early missionaries decided to spread their religious message slowly throughout the populations by allowing them to continue to celebrate pagan feasts, but to do so in a Christian manner.
As it happened, the pagan festival of Eostre occurred at the same time of year as the Christian observance of the Resurrection of Christ. It made sense, therefore, to alter the festival itself, to make it a Christian celebration. The early name, Eostre, was eventually changed to its modern spelling, Easter.
The Easter Bunny as an Easter symbol seems to have its origins in Alsace and southwestern Germany, where it was first mentioned in German writings in the 1600s. The first edible Easter Bunnies were made in Germany during the early 1800s and were made of pastry and sugar.
The Easter Bunny was introduced to America by the German settlers who arrived in the Pennsylvania Dutch country 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. The "O_ster Haws_e" (hare or rabbit) would, if the children had been good, lay brightly colored eggs in the nest. As the tradition spread, the nest has become the manufactured, modern Easter basket, and the placing of the nest in a secluded area has become the tradition of hiding baskets.
The precise origin of the ancient custom of coloring eggs is not known. Many eastern Christians to this day typically dye their Easter eggs red, the color of blood, in recognition of the renewal of life in springtime (and, later, the blood of the sacrificed Christ). Some also use the color green, in honor of the new foliage emerging after the long dead time of winter.