Easter

[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.

[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]

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?

[Arran]

The Easter bunny delivering chocolate eggs is folklore in Protestant countries. The folklore in Catholic countries is that flying church bells deliver chocolate eggs.

[George 1978]

Trying lemon hot cross bun from morrisons today there seem to be more flavours than the traditional ones,tried bramley apple,salted caramel,rhubarb & custard,chocolate they are messy putting in the toaster these have been in Aldi for a few months there are also more flavours in stores

Chocolate hot cross buns - I can imagine putting chocolate spread on them.

[Arran]

Modern day Christmas owes more to Santa than to Jesus. It really is possible to have Christmas without Jesus.

https://youtu.be/tEIKvJQxxvI

The Easter bunny doesn't have anywhere near the same level of presence or pervasiveness as Santa does - in Britain at least. Every kid in reception class fully well knows that Easter eggs are sold in supermarkets, and parents aren't afraid of buying them in front of their kids unlike with Christmas presents. I can't recall meeting anybody who believed that the Easter bunny delivered them a single chocolate egg.

Easter without Jesus still seems a bit undefined.

[George 1978]

Re: Easter

I have just looked it up and 2019 is only the second time in Queen Elizabeth II's reign that Easter Sunday has been on her birthday - the first one was in 1957 (and prior to that, it was on 21st April in 1946). The next time will be in 2030, although we might have a different monarch by then as she would be 104.

We certainly will now...