Easter

[George 1978]

What was the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday commonly referred to in the late 20th century?

It's not called Easter Saturday. That is the Saturday after Easter Sunday.

The official name is Holy Saturday, and Easter Even in Anglican Christianity, but these terms seem to be confined to church officials and have not entered everyday parlance. The day is also colloquially referred to as Black Saturday or Bad Saturday.

It is officially a sombre day to Christians as it commemorates the Harrowing of Hell while Jesus's body lay in a tomb. It was customary for Christians to spend the day at home lounging around on the sofa feeling miserable because Jesus had died.

The Church often refers to it as Holy Saturday - I am certain that George Carey and other Archbishops have referred to that "in-between" day as that. One thing I associate that date with was the Queen Mother's death in 2002.

[beccabear67]

If we had anything special for Easter dins it was always a ham. No idea how that got started, not sure Jesus would approve, but then he probably wouldn't know what a Christmas turkey is.

We did the 'hidden' chocos and egg-shaped candies from the bunny when I was little, usually not too carefully hidden, except for that one petrified foil wrapped chocolate egg found in the winter, who knows how long that was there!

If you got up Easter morning and the brown round things on the floor weren't chocolate... well, that was the Easter bear!

[andrec]

My mum would often make an Easter cake, which was basically a rich fruit cake covered with marzipan and with a tiny, fluffy chick on top, and often a few of those small Cadbury mini eggs that are solid chocolate.

At infant/junior school we would always make an Easter card for our parents. Invariably, it would feature a chick emerging from an egg.

[Arran]

What was the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday commonly referred to in the late 20th century?

It's not called Easter Saturday. That is the Saturday after Easter Sunday.

The official name is Holy Saturday, and Easter Even in Anglican Christianity, but these terms seem to be confined to church officials and have not entered everyday parlance. The day is also colloquially referred to as Black Saturday or Bad Saturday.

It is officially a sombre day to Christians as it commemorates the Harrowing of Hell while Jesus's body lay in a tomb. It was customary for Christians to spend the day at home lounging around on the sofa feeling miserable because Jesus had died.

[Arran]

I can't say that Easter was a particular highlight of my year growing up. Sure, I enjoyed the time off school and the chocolate, but for me it came a pretty poor 4th after Christmas, my birthday and Summer holiday at the seaside. The only time I heard mention of the Easter Bunny was in US cartoons and other TV programmes. There was no real tradition around Easter in our house, no egg hunts etc. The only thing we did was that mom would buy two Christmas puddings and save one for Easter Sunday. As I'm a fan of Christmas pudding I have tried to keep up having one each Easter Sunday, and am pleased to say will be tucking into a helping this very Sunday with a generous pouring of rum sauce. Not something associated with Easter, but the closest we had and have to a tradition.

Interesting. There doesn't seem to be much of an Easter cuisine in Britain like there is a Christmas cuisine.

Easter also isn't an alcohol fuelled celebration like Christmas is.

[andrec]

I can't say that Easter was a particular highlight of my year growing up. Sure, I enjoyed the time off school and the chocolate, but for me it came a pretty poor 4th after Christmas, my birthday and Summer holiday at the seaside. The only time I heard mention of the Easter Bunny was in US cartoons and other TV programmes. There was no real tradition around Easter in our house, no egg hunts etc. The only thing we did was that mom would buy two Christmas puddings and save one for Easter Sunday. As I'm a fan of Christmas pudding I have tried to keep up having one each Easter Sunday, and am pleased to say will be tucking into a helping this very Sunday with a generous pouring of rum sauce. Not something associated with Easter, but the closest we had and have to a tradition.

[George 1978]

Easter 2025 is almost amongst us, and it only dawned to me rather recently that "Urbi" means "urban" and "Orbi" means "orbit" as in His Holiness' appearance at 11.00 am, which seems to be cut down to around 15 minutes, mostly because Pope Francis has been suffering a bit of ill health as of late. One assumes that Songs of Praise probably gets around a quarter of a million more viewers than they would get on a normal Sunday.

Easter also happens to be the time of year when TV schedulers can transmit films featuring Jesus Christ as a character without any hint of blasphemy intended, never mind irony. King of Kings, the film from 1961, as seen as a late alternative breakfast call on BBC Two this Good Friday is nothing to do with HM King Charles III, but a stream of traditionalism being upheld for the sake of whoever's tuned in. Even the actor who portrayed him, Jeffrey Hunter, only lived to be 42, dying in pure Yuri Gagarin -style, before the decade was out.

[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...

[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]

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]

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

[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?!