Easter Sunday 2025 - Which Came First, the Egg or the Chocolate ?

Which came first - Easter, the egg or the chocolate ?

The egg has long been a symbol of renewal and rebirth. Though the feast is a moveable one, Easter falls on the first Sunday after the full moon which occurs on or after the Spring Equinox.

Lambs and rabbits are born, chickens and birds are hatched and new plant life growth is showing  after the cold dormant winter. Easter is a Christian celebration today, but has been adapted from older traditions. Symbols of rebirth and traditional sacrifice come from the Norsemen's Easyat, Ostara and Ostar and the pagan goddess Eostre, all involving the time of the growing sunshine and new birth. Ancient Egyptians, Persians, Phoenicians and Hindus believed that the world began with an enormous egg, and so the egg as a symbol of new life has been around for thousands/millions of years. The Easter Bunny most likely arose  as a symbol of fertility due to the rapid reproduction of rabbits.

But what of the chocolate ?

Painted and decorated eggs have been given as gifts during this festival by all cultures and races but the first chocolate egg as we know it didn't appear until the early 1800s in Germany and France. In the UK the first chocolate was by Fry, now owned by Cadbury. Dark chocolate eggs filled with sweets soon evolved into milk chocolate ones and since the 1960s have been a favourite treat or gift for Easter.      My Easters as a child growing up in the late fifties and sixties, consisted of a church service on Good Friday followed by a walk or parade to the village green where hymns were sung and we prayed and reflected on "a green hill far away, without the city walls, where the dear Lord was crucified, and died to save us all". Two strong boys had carried the old air pump peddle organ to The Green where my father played it robustly and we shivered in our Brownie, Guide and Scouts uniforms and longed for the return to the chapel schoolroom to receive our large Jaffa orange. This was a special treat for , everyone, especially for those who had lived through the rationing of WW2 and after. 

In later years, when we visited church with my parents and  my own children, the 'treat' had evolved into a Cadburys cream egg, which was appreciated by them, much more than an orange would have been and later still cream eggs were/given on Easter Sunday to everyone attending church. The Good Friday treat was clearly a bribe in disguise to get as many people to the service as possible. It worked, in those days. No one would have dreamed of  eating a chocolate egg before Sunday, the celebration day where we rejoiced that Jesus Christ has risen ! If you were lucky enough to get one... 'one' being the usual gift per person. I certainly show my age, and upbringing when I comment on the towers of boxed Easter Eggs, per person,  that seems to be the norm today. 

I like chocolate as much as the next person, and somehow the chocolate of an Easter Egg has always tasted much different and better than that used in a bar or block.  As yet, I haven't had even a cream egg this season, and I am bemoaning the fact of not keeping chickens any longer, to the dogs - who care little.  I have organic oranges, lemons and grapefruit delivered straight from the orchards of southern Spain, which is my "treat" this year. 

As I write this today, someone has just announced from the TV a "Welcome to the feast of snooker at The Crucible Theatre", so that sort of sums up the sentiments of the day to many. Turning to another channel, an Easter Day service is being broadcast  - so there's something for everyone. 

But whatever your taste, religion, faith or reason for celebrating today, have a Happy and Peaceful Easter Day.