Friday, April 3, 2015

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, my dears!  I hope your Sunday is sunny and happy, with friends and family around you, no matter how you celebrate the day.

As I was looking for inspiration for this post, I discovered several lovely Victorian or turn-of-the-century Easter cards. These were given to friends or passed out as promotional material by various companies seeking good will.  Some, like the one at the right, were sentimental over spring. 

Others were playful.


Many followed the traditional story of bunnies and baskets.


And then there were a few that were downright odd.  My sons wanted to know why a bunny brought eggs.  I don’t know what they’d think about a lamb hatching out of one!


May all your animals behave in a suitably proper manner this Easter.

2 comments:

QNPoohBear said...

Librarian to the rescue! Bunnies bringing eggs is a symbol of fertility. Colored eggs as a Spring symbols are pre-Christian in origin, as is the use of the rabbit as Springtime symbolism.

The Easter Bunny and Easter basket tradition from come early German immigrants to PA. According to AOL, the first written mention of the Easter Bunny was in a 1682 book called “About Easter Eggs,” by German physicist and botanist Georg Franck von Franckenau. The first American Easter Bunny appears in Pennsylvania in the 1700s. Children made nests often out of caps and bonnets, in secluded areas of their homes. for Osterhase (the German name for the Easter Bunny) and the bunny came early in the morning to lay brightly colored eggs in the nest. The children hunted for the nests of eggs and decorated an egg tree with the eggs.
I think it's a German tradition that was brought to America by the Pennsylvania Dutch. Read the sweet picture book The Egg Tree by Katherine Milhous to learn more about the Pennsylvania Dutch traditions.

Regina Scott said...

Thanks, QNPoohBear! Happy Easter to you and yours!