I’m from Sweden and it’s a pretty big holiday here, just not as hyped as Christmas. I feel like i’ve heard so many different angles of easter in the us because there is clearly some talk of easter bunnies, egg hunting and cadbury eggs but Jenna marbles said she only celebrated it when she was a child.
I guess every family has it’s own thing and some might celebrate it more than others. I still want to see if there is a similarity in the answers.
So my question is basically: What did you do this easter weekend?
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My kids dyed eggs today. The Easter bunny is coming tonight to fill my kids baskets and hide eggs in our backyard. We aren’t religious.
I’m gonna forget places are closed and be mad, but otherwise I won’t do anything
Same thing I would do every other weekend.
I don’t celebrate it personally, but I remember growing up coloring eggs and doing Easter egg hunts and getting a basket full of chocolates and candies and stuff. It’s pretty common for towns to organize special events, like runs or festivals, for Easter (and many other non-federal holidays).
It’s nothing like Christmas or Thanksgiving. It’s much more of a religious holiday than a secular one. Most families with basic Christian beliefs get their kids Easter baskets and do some decorating. Non religious might use it as a reason to get together with family, but it’s not nearly as important as the big secular days.
We have family members visiting. We’ll hide eggs and Easter baskets for the kids to find in the morning, dye eggs, make a favorite meal, and go to church. Not necessarily in that order.
I can tell by the candy selection at my grocery store that it hasn’t happened yet
It was a bigger deal when I was a kid. We were not a religious family. I’d get a basket of candy and maybe some socks or small games on Easter. Now, it’s just ham and yams for dinner.I might give Jesus Christ Superstar a listen, and put on Life of Brian.
Who is Jenna Marbles and why does what she personally does for Easter matter?
Anyway it’s pretty big not as big as Christmas or Thanksgiving but many people get together with their family and have an Easter dinner.
I do not celebrate either Christmas or Easter. It is impossible for me to avoid being aware of when Christmas is. I only found out that Easter was this weekend about a week ago when I found out I would not be working this Saturday. From my perspective, Easter is nowhere close to being as big of a holiday.
If the questions I’ve seen here this week are anything to go by, nowhere near as big as it is in Europe.
Most people certainly aren’t getting a four-day weekend.
As a Jew it was never that big across my schooling or community. Never was practiced as much Christmas/thanksgiving was. Didn’t mind the day off school however.
It’s big if you have younger kids or are at least an occasionally practicing Christian. Otherwise there generally isn’t much to do if you don’t fall into these two categories.
Christmas on the other hand has a massive amount of secular traditions added onto it. Plus you are much more likely to get off of work.
We go to church, have a big meal, and then do some sort of easter basket or egg hunt.
Outside of religious families, it’s no where near as big as Christmas, it’s not even as big as Valentine’s or St Patrick’s day when it comes to holidays with some basis in religion. It doesn’t even come close to the secular holidays like Thanksgiving, Independence Day, Memorial Day or Veterans Day. It’s more comparable to Juneteenth where it’s a big deal to a specific demographics but for most people they don’t even remember it’s a thing unless they find out they’re getting an extra day off work among non-Christians. For Christians it’s one of the biggest holidays of the year.
In Europe (or at least here in Germany), easter is a national holiday, the way Christmas is in both countries or Thanksgiving is in the US. In the US it’s primarily a religious one — people who are religious celebrate it seriously; people who aren’t might do an easter egg hunt for the kids but that’s about it.
A lot of Americans who aren’t Christian celebrate Christmas essentially divorced from the religious aspect — tree, gifts, Christmas dinner, etc. Basically no non-Christians do all that for Easter.
As one might expect, it is a much bigger deal in religious familes than non-religious ones. I belong to a religious family in the South, so of course it is a big deal for us, haha. We treat it like Christmas and Thanksgiving – hosting a big family get-together with a big meal and lots of visiting relatives, after going to church, of course. The two biggest church services are Christmas and Easter. Some Christians use the term “Chreasters” to describe people who only visit church on Christmas or Easter because of tradition.
And, just in general, there is not really such a thing as Easter shopping like there is for Christmas. Therefore, a lot of companies that want you to spend money on holidays go full force to advertise Christmas and not so much Easter. The companies are in my opinion what turn Christmas into such a big event. I used to work retail, and that killed the holiday vibe for me, let’s just say that, haha.
Americans typically get more time off for Christmas/New Year’s than Easter because Easter is always on a Sunday, and Christmas/New Year’s are on designated dates that can happen in the middle of the week. I live away from my family at the moment, and while I have always managed to spend Christmas with them so far, I don’t often get to spend Easter with them, including this year.
It’s always been one of three holidays where the whole family got together for lunch (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter) for us.
It’s not a big deal like Fourth of July or thanksgiving or Christmas.
As a Catholic it is a huge deal but not everyone is Catholic.
I would call it a midsized holiday. Kids don’t get a day off but you get together with your family for food and candy. Sometimes you go to brunch.
I would say up into the 80s in the US it was similar to how you describe Sweden, although, it probably depended a lot on the community and religion as we are very diverse.
I don’t live in the US right now, but I sense it is not as popular as it once was.
I feel it’s a much bigger holiday for Catholic families than the protestants.
I’m a pretty religious guy so I celebrate it with a lot of prayer, family time, and foodstuffs. It’s not a seasonal kind of holiday like Christmas, though, even if I celebrate it kind of bigger.
It’s all about the kids for us. They did egg hunts with both sets of grandparents already, no specific plans for tomorrow.
It means nothing to me.
The secular side of the holiday is pretty much just for kids. They get candy, have an egg hunt, maybe get a picture with a dude in a rabbit costume.
The religious side is taken seriously by the religious, but it doesn’t do much for everybody else.
Easter was a big religious deal for my mom growing up. I vaguely recall some chocolate bunnies and pastel baskets and such. But mostly I remember lots of boring church services.
My kids, raised without religion, just do the egg hunt and candy thing and then we eat a ham dinner at my in-laws.
They love Easter I would really prefer to ignore it entirely.
Big deal for Christians. Most people are whatever on it.
For kids, the Easter egg hunts and egg decorating and Easter baskets are fun. Personally, as a childless adult, I eat some Easter candy (love the Cadbury cream eggs and robin’s egg candies) and have a nice family dinner.
Edit: and I’ve been told that it’s big to go to Easter church services if you are Christian.
my 18 -23 yo children just hunted for eggs in the yard (a day early so they can go ski on Easter). not religious but it’s fun.
As a secular American, it’s very much a kid’s holiday.
I’m having a dozen kids over for an Easter egg hunt tomorrow with my son, and we always had egg hunts and Easter baskets as a kid. When I was a teen and child free adult, however, it was essentially a non-existent holiday. There no grown-up Easter activities that I’m aware of, unless you’re religious.
It’s notable that I’m having a dozen kids over on Easter because *they don’t have other holiday plans*. It’s not a family holiday like Thanksgiving or Christmas.
I’m going to a brunch at my aunts house. I’m curious when you say its a big deal in Sweden. Mainly because from what I know Sweden isn’t a really religious country. You mention Jenna Marbles saying she only celebrated it when she was a kid. She lives in California not near her family. In the US most non-religious Easter traditions center around children. I’m spoild and me and my siblings will get chocolates (we used to get a basket before my niece and nephew now they get baskets) from my mom. Many communities will have egg hunts, meeting the easter bunny, and things of that nature for Easter (all aimed at children). People often have easter decorations for their houses or whatever but this is more on par with Thanksgiving and fourth of July decorations (compared to Christmas and Halloween). It is a big religious holiday though. Common traditions for children are dying easter eggs, and finding easter baskets / eggs Easter morning (and going to church).
We weren’t religious, but It was always an excuse to get the family together for the day and have dinner.
We’d get baskets with candy and a couple small toys sometimes. Later in the day we would head to my grandparents house for an egg hunt, grandpa would put dollar coins in the eggs, and design the hiding scheme (complete with aerial mapping). grandma would host baked goods, and prepare a ham for dinner.
Was a good time, we stopped once the kids were grown and grandma passed away. My parents plan to put on similar shindigs for my kids, and I will continue the tradition if my kids decide to be parents.
For this weekend I’m making pretzels and drinking, gaming with my friends, basically just living and being merry. can’t wait to host some egg hunts for my kiddos in the future.
I feel like a decent amount of people do something. Similar to Christmas even people who aren’t religious might have kids hunt eggs and maybe grill outside or have a small family gathering.
As a Christian, Easter may be the most significant holiday of the year. Secular traditions such as egg dyeing/painting, and Easter egg hunts are very common, most communities around here will have a public Easter egg hunt. These traditions are more of a kid thing though. Most families will get together for Easter for a nice meal at least.
We almost canceled Easter this year because my son was misbehaving. I told him Jesus would stay dead this year. But yeah, it’s a thing. We had family over. Can’t celebrate on Sunday because my wife works. We don’t really go to church.
We always decorate the house with Easter themed decor (table cloth, placemats, center pieces, bunnies, etc through the house), now that I have grandkids we make them all big Easter baskets with candy and other gifts, this year they got “How to Catch the Easter Bunny,” book, the baby got a board book about Easter, they got some spring colored shirts, legos, a Barbie, silly putty, and spirographs. We do an egg hunt at my daughters house, eggs get colored and we’ll have a big dinner. Mostly we just like an excuse to spoil the grandkids lol
When my daughters were little they always got a new Easter dress, shoes, gloves and hat plus an Easter basket. We lived in a small town that had a town sponsored Easter event with egg hunts and other games. It was always a fun time.
Anywhere there’s a huge Christian population you’re going to see Easter celebrations and activities. And while it’s more of a religious activity, many secular individuals still celebrate and allow their children to participate in Easter egg hunts, Easter baskets and preparing a special dinner.
While not everybody celebrates Easter, most businesses and financial institutions are closed the [Good] Friday before Easter to give people a 3-day weekend.
However, I should point out it is a busy time of year for Christians, Jewish people and those of the Islamic faith, which I think is pretty neat.
As a Catholic, Easter is the first day outside of Lent. Lent is the 40 day lead up where we focus on prayer, chose a bad habit to reign in, volunteer, learn something new and useful and fast. It’s my favorite religious holiday of the year.
I feel like it’s not that big unless you and/or your family are actively religious, or unless you’re a parent of little kids. I’m an atheist, had a secular upbringing, and don’t have any kids in my life, so even though I did Easter egg hunts as a kid, the only reason I know when Easter is as an adult is because of seeing Easter stuff in stores and hearing other people talk about it.
We did Easter baskets and church when I was growing up. I have friends who had Easter egg hunts with family. Sometimes we’d do a family gathering at my grandma’s house. Spring break for school kids occurs in the week before Easter or the week after.
Spring break week is completely bonkers if you work at any park or Children’s museum. I used to work at a very family friendly park and it was bonkers the entire week.
People who aren’t regular church growers will go to church on Easter.
Without children- a big family meal, church
With children- Easter eggs, small gifts, big family meal, church
On Easter in the US:
1. Most families with kids will do Easter baskets and Easter egg hunts of some sort
2. Most people who are even nominally Christian will go to church (there’s a big group of people typically classed as “Easter and Christmas Christians” that make an appearance at churches only on those two holidays).
3. Earlier that weekend the slightly more religious Christian folk celebrate Good Friday and Jews (and some Christians) celebrate Passover
4. Most businesses are closed on Easter and many close early on Friday also. Offices will often be closed Friday and/or Monday, as well.
5. For non-religious people without kids it’s pretty much just another day, unlike Christmas, Thanksgiving, and even July 4th and Halloween that are celebrated in some way by nearly everyone
I am the opposite of most in that I became a Christian as an adult and grew up secular in a large city so here are my thoughts having experienced both.
From an American perspective: Nothing comes close to Christmas. While there are some stores like Costco, Target, etc that close for Easter, many stores are open. Thanksgiving in November is the second biggest closure day (most offices are closed and many restaurants even) with July 4th likely in third. The (mostly retail) stores that are open on Thanksgiving sell merchandise FOR Christmas. That’s how big Christmas is.
From a secular perspective: Easter is for kids. After 12, Easter starts to lose its luster. The Easter bunny isn’t real anymore, you start getting too old for egg hunts (I enjoyed hiding them for my siblings so that kept it going a few more years before losing interest), families start getting too busy for gatherings, and spring break varies based on location. So you might still have families travel from far away but if the breaks are different (even the next town over may have a different spring break) it is hard to coordinate. A long time ago, the week long spring break was often the week before or after Easter. But even in areas with a lot of Christian families, Easter shifts around so it’s easier for the schools to have roughly the same time off each year than follow the holiday calendar that not everyone celebrates. Although I went to a private school and my Jewish classmates appreciated some days off near Passover (or took them off when break was earlier/later).
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From a (rare) Christian perspective: the holiday (as well as Good Friday, which was yesterday) is waaaayyyy more important than Christmas, but it is rare to see closures on Good Friday esp outside of the South. Easter closures are not uncommon for small businesses but most retail and restaurants will be open as usual for Easter sales/brunches. I do go to church on Good Friday each year, do secular Easter on Saturday when our son does the town egg hunt and a photo with the Easter Bunny (a costumed person), attend church on Sunday (we usually attend on Sundays), and then go to my in-laws for a Easter ham lunch followed by another egg hunt for our son. We choose not to do the easter bunny but we also don’t do Santa Claus (except for fun) or the Tooth Fairy – but our kid still gets the same treats. Many Christian families do all of them and some do none. It’s just the family’s preference. But most secular families do the Easter bunny, but for kids only.
Overall in America: Easter is maybe a middle ranking holiday in importance. Christmas does have more acceptance by non Christians because it’s generally a winter presents day with family when many people are off. For non Christians it’s really just egg hunt, easter bunny basket for kids, and maybe a fancy lunch on a Sunday when people are off anyway.
But Christmas is huge, Thanksgiving the busiest travel weekend of the year (my favorite holiday), July 4th is a day off from summer school/work with parades and fireworks, and a bunch of the other days like Halloween have decorations and trick or treating…special moments for kids and adults alike.
So bottom line: Christians…Easter /Good Friday are most important but as this question was asked in an American sub, it doesn’t have the same importance in this country for all the reasons I mentioned above. Not a bad thing. Just that the other holidays have a lot more travel or unique celebrations involved.
A lot of the egg hunting and easter bunny stuff is very kid oriented. But adults will often get together for a meal with their extended family (most people don’t travel for it, though). A lot of businesses close or have special deals. Schools often have a three or four day weekend for it.
So it’s a pretty big holiday, but not on the same level as Christmas or Halloween or even Thanksgiving.
And people say *we’re* the religious ones.
I didn’t even know it was Easter this weekend until Europeans on Reddit kept asking me what I’m doing to celebrate.
The answer is World of Warcraft.
So, I think it’s a much bigger deal over there than it is here.
I’ve been playing this video game that allows you to play some live radio stations. One of the stations is centered around London (I think), they’ve been talking about Easter for *so long*! I was also surprised at how much they talked about it.
Easter was a bigger deal when I was a kid (egg hunts aren’t really for adults), and since I’m not religious it’s not something I celebrate anymore. I will buy some Easter chocolates, but that’s it.
That said, I think it’s moderately celebrated in some fashion for most of the country.
Unrelated, but I also noticed that the radio commercials are much…calmer than those here. Nobody is yelling at me.