Easter is a nutty holiday, and the Christian religion has definitely stolen a lot of the fun bits of ancient pagan ritualism. The eggs and bunnies started out, for sure, as a sign of fertility in ancient Canaanite rituals. It's no surprise that Easter's timing is based not on a modern date but on a particular phase of moon and astronomical sequencing -- how do you suppose the early folk knew when to plant their crops? So they said, "Let's plant crops, then have a big holiday!" These days, we've made it all family safe and skipped the orgies, but the feasting and fertility symbols have survived. (Well, not all of them -- Asherah Poles have gone away.)
I was raised in a devout Christian family that painted Easter eggs and ate chocolate bunnies. My Dad's philosophy is that the eggs are harmless, and they taste good. We're not having orgies, and we're not worshiping pagan deities, so it's ok. Right?
My wife, of course, is Jewish. This weekend, we celebrated Purim, which is an entirely different sort of holiday. It's a celebration of Esther's victory over Haman, wherein the entire population of Jewish people were saved from destruction. Thus, we celebrate by fasting (like all the Jews did), then feasting (like all the Jews did), and giving small gifts. My wife made pumpkin muffins for me to take to work to fulfill that requirement. Oh, and one more detail: long about the 5th century AD, some Jews were reveling and partying and singing a song about "Blessed be Mordecai" (Esther's in loco parentis) and "Cursed be Haman" (the evil villain who wanted all the Jews dead), and people were so drunk that they mixed up the chorus. So some rabbi decreed that people should get so drunk that they couldn't tell the difference between the two expressions, in Hebrew. Nutty.
Completed Jews, or Messianic Jews, or whatever you want to call those who believe that Jesus is the Christ, but remain observant of Torah and Mosaic Law, celebrate the Resurrection (Christian Easter) in the fall, iirc. It's got another name entirely, and they don't do eggs and bunnies at all. Seems like they fast, then feast, then get very drunk, while dancing the hora and singing in Hebrew. Fun stuff.
