From coloring eggs to gifting baskets full of candy, these are some of the most popular Easter traditions
The History Behind 17 Popular Easter Traditions
Updated on Feb. 26, 2025
Celebrating Easter Sunday
The traditional day to celebrate Easter is Sunday. If you have to check your calendar every year, there’s a good reason: Easter is a movable feast, its date changing based on a few variables. In the year 325, the council of Nicaea determined that Easter would occur on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox—unless that happened to interfere with Passover, in which case the holiday would be the Sunday after that. Yep, it’s confusing.
In short, Easter can occur anytime between March 22 and April 25. Christians celebrate by going to church, then eating a big dinner with loved ones. Most celebrations also include candy and fun Easter games for kids.
Eating an Easter feast
Many Christians observe Lent, a 40-day period during which they vow to abstain from something—sugar, alcohol, meat or pretty much any other vice—as a type of purification in preparation for Easter. It symbolizes the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert and culminates in a giant Easter feast, usually with family.
Giving back to the community
Easter isn’t just about sharing Easter memes and egg hunts—it’s also a great time to give back. For Christians, Jesus’s triumph over death was also a call to help those in need through sacrifice and acts of service. Easter is a time for putting faith into action via kindness and sacrifice. This Easter Sunday, consider donating items you no longer need or purchasing new ones for families in need. You can also make volunteering a yearly Easter tradition by helping distribute food or supplies to those less fortunate.
Eating a large omelette
You may have heard of this unique Easter tradition. It originated in Bessières, France, and is said to date back to Napolean’s time. On Easter Sunday, the Brotherhood of the Giant Omelette comes together to cook and serve a massive omelet to the community—large enough to feed 2,000!
Hosting an Easter bonfire
Also known as a Paschal fire or Osterfeuer, the Easter bonfire is a German tradition in which Christian communities create bonfires the night before Easter Sunday to welcome the holiday. You can start your own Easter tradition by lighting a small backyard bonfire, roasting marshmallows (or Peeps!) and enjoying Easter treats with loved ones.
Decorating an Easter tree
You may have seen colorful eggs hanging from trees—and nope, those aren’t poorly disguised Easter egg hunts. The German tradition of decorating trees and bushes with colorful Easter eggs (known as Ostereierbaum) is a stunning way to welcome spring and add a festive touch to your home, inside or out.
Coloring Easter eggs
The star of Easter is the egg—painted or dyed, hard-boiled or blown empty. Legends abound about this symbol, which represents the newness of life and birth and reminds people of Christ’s resurrection. Easter traditions around the world involve the humble egg. They’re brought to church, given as gifts, hidden for the benefit of children and even rolled on the White House lawn.
Getting a delivery from the Easter bunny
Easter is named after Eostre, the pagan goddess that symbolized fertility. Bunnies are well known for their fertility, so the rabbit became associated with the goddess and the holiday. In ancient times, the festival to celebrate Eostre typically occurred in the spring, and that’s also when rabbits breed.
The cartoon version of the Easter bunny, which delivers chocolate and candy-filled Easter baskets to kids, is a fairly modern invention, popularized by marketing campaigns in the 20th century.
Taking part in Easter egg hunts
Of all the Easter traditions, nothing quite beats an Easter egg hunt—for children or adults. Grown-ups hide the eggs, and kids gleefully search for them. The tradition started with Martin Luther, the 15th-century theologian. The joy of the hunt was meant to symbolize the joy that Mary and Martha felt upon finding Christ’s tomb empty after he was resurrected. These days, the eggs are more likely to be made of hollow plastic and filled with Easter candy or toys—a much more fun surprise than a hard-boiled egg that’s been sitting out in the sun too long.
Eating hollow chocolate bunnies
Love them or hate them, hollow chocolate bunnies will most likely be part of your Easter. (They make great Easter basket stuffers, after all.) Considering the underwhelming amount of chocolate they provide (compared with their solid counterparts), chowing down on hollow bunnies may seem like one of the more bizarre Easter traditions. But there’s a reason behind the candy’s popularity.
In 1939, chocolate manufacturers wanted a way to make chocolate bunnies that could be large and decorative while still easy to eat. You’ll have no problem biting into a thin, hollow chocolate bunny, but bigger chunks of solid chocolate can be tough on your chompers. And let’s be honest: Making hollow bunnies was also a way for manufacturers to sell larger products at a cheaper price.
Snacking on jelly beans
Perhaps the best-known candy among Easter traditions—and the most popular after chocolate—is the small jelly bean. The candies come in every flavor and color imaginable, so it’s common to grab some at a store open on Easter. In fact, their versatility (and deliciousness!) is what makes eating them a beloved Easter tradition. Jelly beans originally started as a Christmas candy and don’t have a specific Easter-themed meaning, but they’ve become a popular choice for filling plastic Easter eggs before the big hunt.
Buying candy Peeps
These brightly colored, sugar-coated, chick-shaped marshmallows were invented in 1953 and quickly became a staple in Easter baskets. Now, they come in dozens of different shapes and colors for nearly every holiday. Here’s a fun fact: It takes just six minutes to make a batch of Peeps. Talk about fast food.
Gifting Easter baskets
One of the most popular Easter traditions, filling a basket with eggs, comes from Germany and was inspired by the concepts of fertility and springtime. Children would make “nests” filled with grass in hopes that Peter Cottontail would fill the nest with eggs and other treats. The nests gradually evolved into baskets, which were less messy, easier to carry and, of course, bigger.
Baking an Easter lamb or ham
Most traditional Easter dinners feature meat, and 67% of Americans serve ham, a symbol of good luck in many cultures. In terms of religious Easter traditions, lamb is the favorite. Christians call Jesus the Lamb of God, after all. It’s not uncommon to see a rack of lamb in the center of the feast.
Baking hot cross buns
Hot cross buns and other breads marked with the symbol of a cross aren’t just Easter traditions; they’re often eaten on Good Friday too. Different sweet breads are eaten all over the world on Easter Day, including choreg (Armenia), paska (Ukraine), babka (Poland), tsoureki (Greece) and Italian Easter Bread. These are conspicuously risen breads, which may also show a desire for Easter traditions to be different from Passover, which includes unleavened bread.
Watching Easter parades
The first Easter parades may have started at churches, but they were really about fashion. Beginning in the early 1800s, wealthy Christians in New York City would put on their finest clothing to attend Easter services and then take a long walk home in order to show off their fancy spring suits and dresses. The poorer folk would line up to watch. The Easter tradition has been kept alive through Easter parades, but these are more about fun and celebration than fashion. If you’re not into the parade thing, you can celebrate with a different form of entertainment: Stream Easter movies on Netflix with the kids.
Decorating with Easter lilies
These elegant, trumpet-shaped flowers have become so associated with the holiday that they’ve been named Easter lilies. The white symbolizes purity, and the shape reminds worshippers of the trumpets that will announce Christ’s Second Coming. You can buy fresh-cut stems as holiday decor or order some lily nail wraps and wear Easter nails instead.
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Sources:
- History.com: “Easter Symbols and Traditions”
- History.com: “Easter 2025”
- Smithsonian Magazine: “Why Are Chocolate Easter Bunnies hollow?”
- Britannica: “Easter”
- Farmer’s Almanac: “When is Easter 2025?”
- CT Post: “What would Easter be without ham?”
- National Geographic: “Experience: The Festival of the Giant Omelette”
- CTIF: “Easter Fires may have been burning in Europe since pagan days”
