Easter Sunday as family event like Xmas day?

[skinnyoptionsonly]

When I was younger, we celebrated Easter very similar to Christmas Day with extended family members.

For various reasons now I don’t see it as any kind of special family day.
My kids are with their father. It’s a normal Sunday to me (Plus chocolate obviously).
Even if kids were here, it would still be a fairly normal Sunday

Am I alone in this ?

Yes it’s similar to Christmas for us (but obviously no presents, just a few Easter eggs). We start on Good Friday, usually doing something as a family - maybe a national trust Easter trail. Easter Saturday we tend to spend with friends, then Easter Sunday with our extended family - church, big roast, egg hunt etc, then Easter Monday we’ll do something just our little family of 4. It’s weird this year as the children go back to school just a few days after Easter Monday😢

I actually prefer Easter to Christmas. We just had a full house with my own parents and my sil and her family for lunch today. Lots of lovely food and wine and great fun and banter as the football was also on. The DC did an egg hunt in the garden (despite the weather) and I find it much more relaxing and enjoyable compared to Christmas.

Because it's cultural. Many people grow up with them as special occasions but without any religion.

Christmas - family, food, presents and when young, Santa.
Easter - chocolate, family, food and when young, easter bunny and egg hunts.

Being in Scotland, it feels less of a holiday than it did when I was growing up in England and everything was closed for the day. Unfortunately, as ds1 and I work in retail and ds2 in hospitality, we weren’t able to all get together over the weekend (and tomorrow is a normal day for both college and uni), but I went to church this morning, and had a more special than usual meal with ds2 tonight.

Christmas and Easter are the two biggest events in the Christian calendar. In the 60/70's most families attended church on these occasions and celebrated with family. Today only approximately 5% of the British population attends church and both of these Feast Days have been hugely commercialised. For many people Easter is just about chocolate eggs!

No, for us it's a normal Sunday, albeit with a roast lamb x

I just google it usually…

I feel like Easter is also a celebration of the spring and new life, whether or not they are religious. Such a relief to see a bit of sunshine and flowers, after the endless grey of late winter...

I spent Sunday morning in church, which was packed, at the end of a week of services which had been well-attended and moving - lots of children present. My family - who are not observant of any faith but cultural Christians - had various celebrations. My DD had her DP's DB and his DH and DC to stay, my DS ignored the lot (determined Catholic-educated atheist) and went to a music festival but his ex and his DC celebrated. I went to my DSS and his DP's party for all the family and some friends (and Ddogs). There was an Easter Egg hunt, a celebratory meal and long conversation into the evening. The party was smaller than usual because DP-in-L broke her ankle last week and is on crutches. DSS always cooks and arranges the celebration but was a bit run off his feet due to the accident, of course. DSS is very family orientated and I love him and his family as my own - because they are.

@Conkerjar - just google Easter, the date is known for the next 2000+ years based on the phases of the moon (it's a moon-governed moveable feast like Passover and Ramadan etc) and will also be noted in all diaries, calendars etc. To answer your question about what and when Easter is: Palm Sunday, which is the week before Easter Sunday, is a feast day marking Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, and is celebrated (C of E churches will have red altar cloths etc in place of the purple of Lent for that day) and Holy week follows, which is the last week of Lent (a six week time of fasting), usually with services every day and especially on Maundy Thursday (when the King gives out Maundy Money - he used to wash the pensioners' feet as Jesus washed the disciples before the Last Supper, but that went out a couple of centuries ago, I think) and Good Friday.
Good Friday is the greatest fast of the Christian year for God is dead. Altars are stripped, removing the cross and candles and altar cloths, and there can be no Eucharist on that day (tho' some churches will give the reserved sacrament from Maundy Thursday - just the bread, no wine is consecrated and it is not communion but a reminder of the crucifixion) but there is a solemn service with suitable readings, solemn music and the traditional hymns of Good Friday which speak of death and betrayal. Our rector wore only a black cassock and the choir wore purple cassocks.
(Holy) Saturday is a day of mourning as Jesus harrows Hell (Apostles creed) but ends with a joyful lighting of the dark church and lots of noise to greet the Resurrection. Easter Eve services can be spectacular as they are light out of darkness. Some churches - and often cathedrals - celebrate late at night in dark churches which are brought to blazing light with candles.
Easter Day (Sunday) is the greatest feast of the Christian year and is greeted with gold and white vestments, altar cloths etc and flowers and bells - no flowers in church during Lent and no bells during Holy Week. For this reason in the UK all shops shut by law in England and Wales if they are over 3k feet (just as on Christmas Day) and Good Friday is a public holiday.
Everyone I know is perfectly aware when Easter will fall - they look it up. It's a big thing for retail, the confectionary industry and the hospitality industry since people celebrate the holiday in various ways and very few do not give Easter Eggs or chocolates of some kind. There are always moves (esp by the Labour Party in the UK) to 'fix' Easter. But I suspect industry and commerce would protest as well as the church because they have seen what happened when Whitsun (Pentecost) was secularised. People have forgotten it and the spending traditions (new clothes) that went around it. Easter is so huge commercially that ending it's religious celebration as a public holiday would cost esp confectioners a lot of custom - they won't allow it (it would also mean losing the public holiday of Good Friday resulting in one fewer day to ease money out of people's pockets!)

We have a roast and let the kids eat some chocolate. We used to do hunts and roll eggs but that dried up as they got older. We don’t see it as Christmas Day. Just a normal day with a Sunday roast for our own family and catching up on jobs.

Well , either way...
If it's normal, then there's no cause to be snide.
If it's abnormal, because not standard behaviour, then it's bullying to attack minorities.
There is no justification for mocking people's beliefs. The more you think about it, the more unpleasant you realise it is.

Well said, WilfredsPies.
It's nice to know there are also some sensible people on Mumsnet. 🤣🤣

When I was younger I would have called the day between Good Friday and Easter Day 'Easter Saturday'. I did. I was wrong. Someone put me right and taught me that it's Holy Saturday. 'Easter Saturday' will be 26th April this year.

Family day - yes, where possible.

I grew up with Easter being as much of a deal as Christmas — more in some ways. Yesterday we had new clothes, shoes, fancy meal etc.. Then we went out for the evening with our friend.

I had a video chat with my brother expecting he'd have done similar to find he'd had a cheese sandwich due to family life taking over...

I don't think you are alone in ending up just you and chocolate. I don't think my brother even had the chocolate! I truly hope that people still celebrate Easter as much as I do though.

Well I’ve just learnt something new. I obviously know Scotland & NI don’t have the exact same Bank Holidays as in England and Wales, but because Christianity is the majority faith in Scotland as well, it didn’t occur to me that Scotland wouldn’t have the same statutory bank holidays over Easter. That’s really interesting.

I did read something about how different councils have the option of claiming the Monday as a holiday. So how does that work? If you work in one place you get the day off, if you work in another, you don’t?

I used to but it’s becoming as over-hyped as Christmas and you’re made to feel weird if you’re not spending it with family ticking the boxes of lamb, board games, walk, egg hunt and so on.

I love it for the extra time off work, the feeling of the world coming back to life and the chocolate. We have seen family but it’s been pretty low-key much like it was when I was growing up in the 70s/80s.

I like celebrating the events that happen every year as it feels familiar and reassuring but I could do without being told how to do it by supermarkets and social media.

We do an Easter egg hunt and a roast dinner followed by their chocolate eggs for pudding. We often do a roast dinner on a Sunday so it's not seen as a "major" event

Sort of like Christmas here too. Definitely a special day. Easter eggs in the morning followed by Easter themed crafts, then a big Easter egg hunt in the garden followed by a special roast. All done with grandparents and cousins.

if I could I’d also go to church service but I’m the only one who would so it doesn’t really fit in

How was your Easter weekend in the end @skinnyoptionsonly?

Easter Monday is an odd one.. I know that NHS services in my council area were closed today (citing a public holiday) but schools and colleges were open. I don’t think it’s generally a holiday though, and not an official bank holiday (as opposed to January 2nd which is a bank holiday..)

I've always thought we should set an Easter tradition but it's not happened. Just eggs, and the kids like an egg hunt in the garden. I grew up Catholic so there used to be church, but we did that every Sunday so it was no different to the rest (apart from chocolate), certainly was a lot less important in our house than Christmas and I still do loads of things at Christmas. Usually Easter is a DIY time for us, we've got loads done this weekend

Nope not a big day at all. By chance my DS and I popped in to see my MIL as we were out shopping in the area but DH was at home faffing about.

when I was a kid if it fell on my grandparents birthday weekend then was a big deal but coincidental

Growing up Easter wasn’t really a big thing in our house, I remember getting Easter eggs but don’t remember big family get togethers with a roast or even the fish supper on Good Friday. I don’t even remember hot cross buns.

The last few years I’ve been happy to have guests and cook a roast and we always have hot cross buns as part of our breakfast. When my DC were younger on the Good Friday we’d take them to local National Trust that had Easter egg hunts on and the Easter bunny would be there which was lovely.

DC are getting older, their cousins are all adults now doing their own thing and unfortunately not as many grandparents around, so we’ve now decided that we’d like to start going away for the Easter holidays.

It is if your… being that anal and pedantic…