For many people, Easter celebrations are accompanied by eggs: hard-boiled, decorated eggs, plastic, candy-filled eggs, chocolate eggs….every kind of egg you can imagine. But where did this tradition come from? Why do we use eggs at Easter?
The egg is commonly used as a symbol of the beginning of new life, as when a chick hatches from an egg, new life is emerging. The ancient Zoroastrian people, from the early part of 5th century BC, painted eggs for their New Year celebration, Nowrooz, a celebration that occurs on the Spring equinox. In the Jewish tradition, during Passover Seder, they dipped hard-boiled eggs in salt water to symbolize the festival sacrifice offered at the Temple in Jerusalem.
Christianity also has its own use for the egg, as a symbol for the grave and life renewed or resurrected by breaking out of it. In the Orthodox tradition, eggs are dyed red as a representation of Christ’s blood shed on the cross, with the hard eggshell symbolizing the tomb.
For most people, decorating eggs is a fun tradition to celebrate the holiday, usually with food coloring, stickers, crayons, or paint. The eggs are then sometimes used in an Easter Egg hunt, where eggs are hidden and children have to run around and find them. Often times plastic eggs containing chocolates and small toys are hidden instead of the hard-boiled variety. Other countries have an Easter egg roll, done on flat ground, where the egg is pushed along with a spoon. Other Easter egg rolls consist of rolling painted eggs down steep hills. Still other countries hold an egg dance, where eggs are laid on the ground and people dance among them, trying not to damage any.
Whatever your tradition with Easter eggs, enjoy the following humorous egg photos.