Anyone else annoyed by how Easter falls this year?

[Pyjamapyjamapyjama]

Easter is a big deal in my culture (I'm not British) and we always travel to my parents to celebrate. I cannot drive for a medical reason and usually take my kids there by train (it's a good 3 hours away), going on the Thursday before and returning the Tuesday after. However this year the schools go back on the Tuesday directly after Easter Monday which is incredibly irritating as no trains are running over Easter weekend and I have 0 desire to drag two kids and a baby on replacement bus services. I can't host myself as my home isn't large enough.

So annoying!!

I know! I was disagreeing with the OP and the pp that I quoted.

The first Sunday in April isn't a fixed date

Easter is always on a different date, calculated according to the phases of the Moon. It's always the first Sunday after the full moon that occurs on or after the Spring equinox. Easter can be as early as March 22nd and as late as April 25th.

That doesn't seem too bad. Our schools are off from the end of March, so back a week before Easter Monday. We are in 4 days, off Good Friday, then back Easter Monday again. (Fine with me, though don't know why they bother with having good Friday off)

Easter falls in the middle of my kids' school holidays. Perhaps you should be annoyed at the school, it's clearly not Easter's fault.

Ok well fixed to the first Sunday in April @Borka

Easter is late this year.
I am annoyed my Southern Hemishphere trip over Easter holidays (visiting family) falls in autumn (April) rather than late summer (March) and I will also be missing 3 weeks of English spring which I love.

Hey ho - what can I do. If we don't go this year, school exam cyles will mean we can't go for another 3 years so we are sucking it up.

Both mine finish on 11th and go back on 28th
It would annoy me too if they were back on the Tuesday

I'm always amused by comments like this from people who supposedly did RE in school.

The date of Easter is calculated the way it is because the events of the original Easter happened at the Jewish Passover. The whole symbolic point of it is that it's a new kind of Passover, with saving from the Egyptians replaced by saving from sin and death.

it moves around with the date because it is tied in with the Jewish festival of passover, as according to the Bible the crucifixation was just before passover, the jewish calendar was based on the lunar system and therefore passover also changes each year it may or may not coincide with Easter as the Jewish calendar is complicated on a 19 year cycle with an extra month The actual word in the Bible sometimes translated as Easter is actually passover, the word Easter does not appear in the scriptures in their original language; Easter is a word borrowed from Pagan origins,
For thse believing the biblical narrative we know Jesus died at passovver so the remembrance of the event is at the correct time of year unlike Christmas where no one actually knows it is just speculation, there is no evidence for December 25th or indeeed any other date at all.
Many festivals in many different religions are calculated by the calendar and moon and are not the same date every year. Chinese New year, Ramadan etc etc are all based on lunar cycles and move.

Move to Wales. No matter when Easter falls it's always in the middle of the holidays

I didn’t know about (English?) schools always taking the first two weeks of April - where I am the school Easter holiday is always the weeks either side of Easter Sunday which affects the term lengths. Here we complain that the dc are either not getting enough work completed because the term is too short, or not able to work hard enough because the term is too long.

This

Schools here go back on Easter Monday so just be grateful you at least get the Monday off 😊

Yes, it's the same for us, and I am annoyed!

Same for us, but it did mean we get a bargain trip abroad as it's term time prices 😃

There have been various attempts over the years to fix the date of Easter but all have come to nothing.

In 1928 Parliament passed a law stating that Easter would always take place on something like the second Sunday of April but as I understand it there wasnt any agreement with the other countries/ other churches so it hasnt been implemented.

According to this page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_of_the_date_of_Easter there have been more recent attempts to reform the date but they havent been able to get agreement between the churches.

There is no reason why schools couldnt have fixed holidays every year with just a long weekend for Good Friday and Easter Monday if it fell outside the school holidays. On the years that this happened they would just extend the summer term to ensure that everyone got the required 190 days

It's not all English schools, are area have just brought in last year to make the terms a more equal length. I don't think many others are doing it as center parcs haven't cottoned on with their pricing according to our friends who are having a bargain trip there. We have also got a super cheap deal abroad that first week in April

That’s a choice by the school. My child’s school has Easter as the middle weekend.

Quite so.

Except the early church mucked it up a bit so sometimes Easter is close to Passover and sometimes it's quite a way off.

I've often wondered why Easter isn't a set holiday and time like Christmas is.
It is late this year

It's better than last year when they had Good Friday & Easter Monday off and then back to school Tuesday until Friday and then two weeks holidays. That was totally impractical!

That’s interesting. I’m British too, and it isn’t part of my culture almost at all- not even in the commercial, chocolate eating, or egg hunting sense. It’s definitely more based on religion, as Britain is made up of so many cultures with different influences and beliefs you can’t generalise. Easter is only really relevant to Christians (church, family meal) and families with young children (easter bunny, chocolate) these days I don’t realise it’s passed most years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dateoff_Easter

Nope, I love the Easter dates this year. Its my birthday on Good Friday, so get a nice long weekend without having to take any holiday for it.