Spring Equinox, feast of new beginnings

How about the Easter Bunny ? There are certainly enough celebrations about him at Easter.

AprIl Fool's Day !!

The druids called it Oestre and it was a festival more about the returning cycle of a warming sun and a spring that promised a coming fruitfulness and good harvest with the buds devleoping - I am guessing that is where we get 'oestrogen' from - the druids were aware of the oneness of all nature.

I was baptised and brought up a Catholic and did all the chruch stuff growong up but if you teach your daughter how to think and help her develop her critical thinking as she gets older she'll probably come to the same conclusion you have. Being a Catholic didn't do me any harm, if anything it gave me an insight that I wouldn't have otherwise had.

Do NOT allow her t be taken to Sunday school..... nothing good happens in those circles.... and it'll slow her development of critical thinking skills..... which most very religious people are void of.

As a lifetime ex catholic, you explain it as a family tradition. "Most of the religious world celebrates this event, and even though we're not religious, we made this holiday a fun family tradition." is what I told my son.

Go back to the pagan roots: celebrate spring, new beginning, fertility and preparing to plant.

"The Easter bunny gathers up all his magical eggs in a basket and steps out into the world, and if he sees his own shadow then there will be another six weeks of winter."

Or, more soberly, "Easter is a celebration of springtime. The exact celebration comes from a pre-Christian pagan religion, and every culture and every religion around the world has some kind of holiday to mark this time of year."

Easter Bunny, Jelly Beans and colored eggs

Oops. New phone + fat fingers = "yur"

The truth: It's a pagan holiday celebrating spring's rebirth that got hijacked by the church, to make Xtianity more palateable to pagans they were trying to convert. In a way that yur child can understand. Ex: Easter is a celebration of nature, because the winter is over, and it's time for flowers to bloom.

"It's a stupid holiday that you don't even get a day off for. No, you may not have that giant chocolate bunny."

I think it’s called spring. Explain the shifting of the seasons and how ancient people’s came up with different ways to explain it. And how we’re lucky to have science to know what’s really happening.

Spring equinox, changing of the seasons, a celebration of fertility of the natural world around us. Going on a natural level, its the celebratrion of the return of the germination time of the year and the the time to be well into planting and breeding seasons. I mean honestly, bunnies and eggs? Hello....

Talk about the easter bunny and the colored eggs. That makes more sense than the nonsense of a man rising from the dead.

I would explain that Christians believe it's about the death and resurrection of Jesus, because (as you're already aware) she's going to hear that from a number of sources. Then go on to explain that, way before the time of Jesus, it was a celebration of spring, and can still be that if you want it to be.

Not believing in God is probably more common than you think. I suspect a lot of people cling on to Christianity (and other religions) more for the sense of community than out of any sinceere belief that there's a guy in the sky somewhere, looking after us if we're good and punishing us if we're not. There's too much evidence of the non-existence of an omnipotent and benevolent god for anyone with an ounce of rationality to take that idea seriously. But there's a bit of an "Emperor's new clothes" thing going on. Nobody wants to speak out against doctrine for fear of being ostracised.

Eating chocolate because some people thought they saw a friendly zombie.

4 days of public holidays and all the damn tourists turn up and clutter our beaches making lots of mess and noise as if they own the place. But some people worship the chocolate gods.

At 3.5 years old, you'll have to keep it pretty simple, but it's good that you can work on a strategy for upcoming holidays as she gets older. You might explain that Easter is a time for telling lots of different kinds of stories about being energized by spring time. Your parents like stories they learn in church, you might like to tell stories about baby animals and flowers coming into bloom, or feeling happy about all your favorite things you like to do outdoors, or what have you. Hopefully you can find in your library or order some secular easter books to read to her?

When I was explaining holidays to my kids I used this approach. We hung easter eggs from the trees in our yard, planted flower seeds, had a feast to celebrate spring. We did have easter egg hunts with relatives religious and not.

I think if any religious folks complain about celebrating in a more secular way, you've got the facts behind you that Oeaster was historically before Easter and they should be glad you're not calling them on that nor complaining about the way they are celebrating in church.

Celebration of welcoming spring and a cool way to get presents and candy until you're like 12 or 13. Haha

I told my kids easter was a celebartion of spring. that we clebrated with chocolate bunnies. Which is what we did.

I taughter my daughter Eostre.... The bringing of new life... Plants, animals, a new beginning of life.

Esotre the celebration of spring solstice. Christians stole it for easy conversion. The rabbit was the symbol. I don’t know where the egg came from. Maybe the breeding season.

The history of where it came from.