Easter

[Arran]

I think that autumn is more lucrative for sales rather than the spring - in the autumn there is the run up to Christmas. Another reason could be the fact that Christmas is the birth of Jesus and Easter is the death of Jesus - it is more normal for people to celebrate a birth than a death for obvious reasons.

Easter (Sunday) is actually the celebration of the rebirth of Jesus.

I'm not confident that the religious aspects of Christmas and Easter have any impact on modern day British people who, by and large, are not very religious and highly consumerist. Even most hardline atheists celebrate Christmas as a fun and consumerist celebration.

The difference may well lie outside of religion. Christmas being the modern day equivalent of Saturnalia along with the fact that many secular traditions which continue to today emerged in the 19th century.

I'm wondering if nobody has found a real way of making money out of Easter, apart from chocolate eggs. Did Toys R Us miss a trick by not holding a Black Friday style Easter sale in order to tempt parents to start buying toys as Easter presents?

[George 1978]

I think that autumn is more lucrative for sales rather than the spring - in the autumn there is the run up to Christmas. Another reason could be the fact that Christmas is the birth of Jesus and Easter is the death of Jesus - it is more normal for people to celebrate a birth than a death for obvious reasons.

[Arran]

Black Friday appeared almost out of nowhere, so it does appear a bit weird that retailers haven't capitalised on Easter to sell more toys and other consumer goods - with the possible exception of things for the garden.

As much as I deplore rampant consumerism at Christmas, I wouldn't mind Easter becoming a time when it becomes a cultural norm for parents to buy children bikes, scooters, outdoor toys, and summer clothes as gifts. If Christians want to keep Easter as a miserable sombre event (and Christianity is a religion built on a death cult) then so be it for them, but I don't think it's appropriate that the misery should rub off onto the nation as a whole considering the retreat of Christianity from the public realm since 1945.

[Arran]

Another difference between Christmas and Easter is that people don't pig out on food at Easter like they do at Christmas. There isn't even any specific Easter food apart from hot cross buns and a few cakes and biscuits with bunnies and chicks on them sold in supermarkets. You don't find many people piling their shopping trollies with food in supermarkets like there is no tomorrow a few days before Easter like you see a few days before Christmas. As far as the British people are concerned, Christmas isn't Christmas without a dead turkey on the table along with the obligatory sprouts and a heavy alcohol infused pudding - despite 90% of the population detesting them. The traditional Easter dinner is roast lamb but the only people who serve it are the folk who regularly cook roast dinners on Sunday. I wouldn't be surprised if chicken (not necessarily roast) is more popular than lamb nowadays but rabbit meat will always remain a niche item. It's tradition (rooted in Christianity) to eat fish on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, and abstain from meat both days, but only devout Christians (and fish lovers) seem to adhere to this tradition nowadays.

Easter is also a relatively dry event compared with the booze fuelled Christmas. Is this because there is a certain Christmas spirit that's absent at Easter which in the modern day translates to whisky, gin, and vodka?!

[George 1978]

I have wondered why, in recent decades, Easter hasn't become commercialised in a similar way to Christmas with parents buying toys etc. for their kids. All that is sold are chocolate products and a bit of cheap tat.

Probably because of the fact that Easter has been a bit more low-key - in the run up to Easter (Lent, rather than Advent), we don't get the adverts for sales in the same vein as we would in November and early December - it's the time of year when we see gardening items and furniture store sales advertised on TV. We don't ask "what presents do you want for Easter?" in the same way as we would for Christmas or a birthday - also, I know that Clinton's and Card Factory sell them, but hardly anyone sends Easter cards to people as prominently as Christmas or birthday cards, do they? I have seen them, mostly with flowers or chicks on the front to represent spring if anything, rather than a religious festival.

Apart from the church service (in which Justin Welby himself is doing this year at Canterbury Cathedral - worth watching as a result), and Urbi et Orbi (with the Pope as Francis and his predecessors have done so for donkey's years), and one or two documentaries on Jesus, TV programmes are business as usual, probably because it is on a Sunday anyway - in fact, Easter Monday Bank Holiday reinforces it in lieu of Sunday. BBC 1 and ITV used to show films like The Robe or Jesus Christ Superstar on Easter Sunday afternoon, or perhaps Mary Poppins or some Disney film like that. Channel 5 starting on Easter Sunday in 1997 was probably a good choice of day to launch in that respect.

Also, there doesn't seem to be songs about Easter in the charts (Bing Crosby's Easter Parade is the only song about Easter that I can think of), compared to Christmas songs in December. Because of COVID, I have even heard of some people putting trees up in their living rooms this year, making comparisons with Christmas trees in December.

I ordered seven different Easter eggs with my Tesco online shop, but only two were delivered on Tuesday (Csdbury Roses and Kit-Kat Chunky) - they were probably selling like hotcakes never mind hot cross buns.

[Arran]

I have wondered why, in recent decades, Easter hasn't become commercialised in a similar way to Christmas with parents buying toys etc. for their kids. All that is sold are chocolate products and a bit of cheap tat.

A (now closed down) local bike shop used to do promotions to encourage parents to buy their kids a bike as an Easter gift but it failed to catch on. The twisted irony is that Christmas is actually the worst time to buy kids a bike and Easter is the best time - and the owner of the shop even admitted it.

[Arran]

Why the Dickens is Easter celebrated less than Christmas?

https://religionnews.com/2015/04/02/...ess-christmas/


Why Easter never became a big secular holiday like Christmas

https://www.vox.com/2018/3/29/171688...unny-egg-pagan


Today is Spy Wednesday. The day that Christians believe Judas betrayed Jesus. It's actually a religious celebration with a church service in the evening.

There is a strange twisted irony that Easter has more events in the run up to the big day than Christmas has, yet the run up to Easter Sunday feels very ordinary to say the least compared with that for the run up to Christmas day.

[amethyst]

Re: Easter

Good advice tex!
Happy Easter. ☺

Indeed should be dead quiet on Sunday the supermarkets are shut

[Danniella]

Re: Easter

Happy easter to all on DYR .....stay home and stay safe

Good advice tex!
Happy Easter. ☺

[tex]

Re: Easter

Happy easter to all on DYR .....stay home and stay safe

[amethyst]

Re: Easter

All eggs BOGOF at Morrisons ....treat yourself, i know i have

Probably all gone today Happy Easter guys even though we won't be going anywhere

[tex]

Re: Easter

All eggs BOGOF at Morrisons ....treat yourself, i know i have

[amethyst]

Re: Easter

Nobody allowed in cemeteries today on palm Sunday to put flowers on loved ones graves

[Richard1978]

Re: Easter

My family didn't even get round to planning easter, but we can't have any get togethers.

[amethyst]

Re: Easter

No Easter egg hunt for children