Easter Sunday April 16th--Happy Easter!!
No School Monday April 17th
Launch the media gallery 1 playerEaster is a spring festival that celebrates the central event of the Christian faith: the resurrection of Jesus Christ three days after his death by crucifixion. Easter is the oldest Christian holiday and the most important day of the church year.
According to the gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday (also Resurrection Day or Resurrection Sunday). The chronology of his death and resurrection is variously interpreted to be between 26 and 36 AD, traditionally 33. All the Christian movable feasts and the entire liturgical year of worship are arranged around Easter.
Easter Sunday is preceded by the season of Lent, a 40-day period of fasting and repentance culminating in Holy Week, and followed by a 50-day Easter Season that stretches from Easter to Pentecost.
The origins of the word "Easter" are not certain, but probably derive from Estre, an Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring. The German word Ostern has the same derivation, but most other languages follow the Greek term used by the early Christians: pascha, from the Hebrew pesach (Passover).
The method for determining the date of Easter is complex and has been a matter of controversy. To make it as simple as possible, the Western churches (Catholic and Protestant) celebrate Easter on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox.
However, the spring equinox is fixed for this purpose as March 21 and the "full moon" is actually the paschal moon, which is based on 84-year "paschal cycles" established in the sixth century, and rarely corresponds to the astronomical full moon. These complex calculations yield an Easter date of anywhere between March 22 and April 25.
Over the centuries, these religious observances have been supplemented by popular customs, many were incorporated from springtime fertility celebrations of European and Middle Eastern pagan religions. Rabbits and eggs, for example, are widely-used pagan symbols for fertility. Christians view the Easter eggs as symbols of joy and celebration (as they were forbidden during the fast of Lent) and of new life and resurrection.
Easter customs vary across the Christian world, but decorating Easter eggs is a common motif as well as hiding brightly colored eggs and an Easter Bunny for children activities.