Originally Posted by
JuniperWoolf
:D Yes sir, Easter is a spring revival festival. It was for thousands of years, and still is, celebrated as the rebirth of Spring, so symbols of fertility and birth are rampant (new life comes from eggs, fresh pastel-colored flowers spring from the earth, new blades of grass poke out of the dirt, rabbits hump excessively and theirs is the first species of the year to birth offspring), and chocolate is a part of Easter because it's a sweet treat which evokes a sense of childhood (spring is when nature is just born again after winter's apparent "death," the earth itself is as a child, so it's a very child-like time). It wasn't ALWAYS chocolate, chocolate is new, but we've always eaten plenty of sweet childish treats like honey cakes at the Spring holiday.
Many modern pagan revivalists call Easter "Ostara" to dissociate from the Christian holiday, which I guess is fine if that's what they want to do but I don't think it's necessary. "Ostara" is a new word which has no basis in classic religion, and "Easter" already contains themes of rebirth on it's own, as does the Christian Easter story (ie. the "resurrection" of Jesus), so it's all just themes and symbols and stories of rebirth and resurrection. The celebration of the Spring Equinox, the rebirth of Spring, has always contained these themes, symbols and stories, it's never ceased since the dawn of recorded history, and now it's all just blended together.
It's a wonderful holiday, don't you just feel like celebrating when you see the first buds forming on the trees and blades of grass poking up, and the water rushing through the streets like little rivers from the melted snow, and feel the first rain washing all the dust away, and see the sun in the sky later than four in the afternoon? ...Well, maybe it's more poignant for people in the north, which might be why Northern civilizations have always celebrated the Spring Equinox more exuberantly than those further south.
Regarding Santa, he's a sort of god which we've borrowed from Eastern Europe. My boyfriend loves Santa's mythology and has studied it extensively, I'll talk about it later maybe.
