How has Easter changed so much?

[PistachioTiramisu]

When I was a child (60s/70s) Good Friday was a day when you went early to buy Hot Cross Buns and this was the ONLY day you ate them. Otherwise, all the shops were closed, there were religious programmes on TV and a lot of people ate the traditional fish for dinner. Easter Saturday was a 'fun' day, buying nice food for Sunday. On Easter Sunday you probably were given a chocolate egg or two and had roast lamb for dinner. Again, there were religious programmes on TV. Easter Monday was a day for picnics, etc., but all the shops were still closed.

It seems a shame that the true meaning of Easter has more or less disappeared, having been overtaken by a mountain of chocolate in various shapes and forms, some people having Easter trees with decorations and other themed items. I saw one comment this morning (not on here) stating that 'Easter is for kids', echoing the nonsense that 'Christmas is for kids'. It is not - it's for everyone who wants to mark the event.

That confirms what we were saying most in Britain see Easter as a secular festival.

No, you were saying a very small amount of people go to church at Easter which is blatantly incorrect.

You are definitely unreasonable to lament losing the “true meaning of Easter” if you never actually celebrated it! Everything you described at the start is just tradition, not meaning. There’s literally nothing superior about roast lamb vs Easter egg hunts or eating baked goods one day rather than another. You appropriated a religious holiday for yourself and then got upset when others did the same but in a slightly different way.

I could equally say that its a shame that the “true meaning of Easter (Oestre) has been taken over by all the Christian stuff when it’s really a pagan spring festival! But I won’t as each to their own

Given that these are absolutely central Christian questions that people have seriously thought about for 2000 years I would suggest that if you actually want to find answers you can. The quick answers are obviously shallow and easily picked at, but there are deeper answers to be had if you engage with patience. Just like any other topic.

Well, there's nothing to stop you having your own celebration in the local woods, you could dance naked around a bonfire under the Easter/Oestre Full Moon, drink mead and then give each other Oestre/Easter eggs and then sit and wait for the dawn....

Well, Easter fires are a big tradition in Germany

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

I don’t use social media so I don’t really witness any of the ‘over-commercialisation’. I only know what we do and it’s relatively simple. I get DC 2 eggs each, we do an egg hunt in the garden and have a Sunday dinner. I also make bunny shaped pancakes for breakfast which takes me 2 mins and is well received. We usually go on a national trust egg hunt too but the car is out of action this weekend so couldn’t. Nothing insane.

We aren’t a religious country. Why would you be surprised that there isn’t “religious programming” on the tele. We went to a wedding yesterday, came home and had a nap, and ordered some Chinese food. My parents and brother went to a beer festival. My other brother is on a stag do. Why are you trying to police how people enjoy their bank holiday weekend?

I am an atheist now but I was brought up a Catholic and remember Easter as a very religious time with much ceremony and drama. Good Friday when the priest washed the feet of chosen people, and you all went up to kiss the cross. Then midnight on Easter Sunday, when you gathered outside the church, the Paschal candle was lit, you followed the priest into the totally dark, empty church, statues still shrouded from Lent. The priest sang "Christ Our Light" and the choir replied "Thanks be to God", then everyone lit their own candles from the Paschal candle. It was thrilling to my impressionable young mind. What the Catholics do best....

I’m and late 70s 80s/90s child. Good Friday was always half day closing at the shops. As a catholic it might have been the service where you sit in silence in front of the cross and the church is stripped bare. I wasn’t brought up catholic but did attend a few different churches as I was a Christian. Our local ecumenical group always organised a joint service where crosses were processed through the town, public worship carried out in the shopping centre and crosses taken to a hill to put up with more worship.

Easter Saturday was a normal day - as a teen I had a Saturday job and worked. Don’t recall much in my early childhood. Catholic mass on Saturday evening was the long vigil mass with a big fire at the beginning and some confirmations or adult first communions.

Easter Sunday. Some went to church. Some didn’t. Usually a Sunday lunch with the extended family followed by Easter eggs. Chill out day of tv. I’m sure those old Jesus of Nazareth type films were on which covered the Easter story. Shops were closed. They always were on a Sunday though until some retail type parks and garden centres started opening on the 90s.

Whatever happened to the the Easter eggs in mugs? We had a few over the years. And Easter eggs where the sweets were inside the egg. We always got a new dress for Easter too.

You don't have to buy into it.

Also, decorated Easter trees are traditional.in some parts of Europe and areas of the US where certain European nationalities settled.

As a Catholic, I've just spent three of the last four evenings in the church, on Holy Thursday (washing of feet at Mass, exposition of the Blessed Sacrament at the end, a solid two hours of Mass), Good Friday (no Mass but a long service including veneration of the cross), and the Easter Vigil Mass that began at 7:30 with the Pascual fire and the lighting of candles and went on until almost midnight as my parish had seventeen teens and adults to baptise and confirm and the church was jam packed.

As far as I'm concerned, that's what Easter is all about. The rest you can take or leave, including the films they used to show on TV.

When I was a child we had roast lamb and all the trimmings for dinner on Easter Sunday. We had an Easter egg each that could be eaten after dinner. We went to all the Holy Week Masses and services, and when we got a TV my parents tuned in for the Pope's Easter blessing (Pope Paul VI, I recall).

I moved abroad as an adult and embraced some of the Easter traditions people follow where I live - decorating Easter trees, certain culinary traditions, the Easter bunny (my DCs got items like jelly beans, bubbles, sidewalk chalk in their Easter baskets). Still did (and continue to do) all the church elements, which to me are central.

I live in a multicultural.society. Not everyone celebrates Christian holy days here. Even among the Christians, there are huge differences in observance.

This.

Aren't you erasing about 1500 years of British Christian history right there though? That's not an insignificant period of time.

Plus, the pre-Christian traditions of eggs, bunnies, fires, and whatnot were definitely not shared by the ancestors of millions of people who are today's Britons.

As an Orthodox Christian Easter is definitely the biggest celebration of the year for us. The traditions/religious rituals are the same today as they were when I was growing up. Fasting, going to church, spring cleaning the house, making traditional Easter savoury and sweet pastries, dyeing eggs red and finishing off with a huge family barbecue on Easter Sunday.
Orthodox Easter Sunday is next week. Holy Week for us begins on the Saturday of Lazarus and finishes with a midnight service on Saturday night which finishes at 2am on Sunday morning where the darkened Church is filled with candlelight and the cries of Christ is Risen! This is the busiest time of year for the Orthodox churches and it’s definitely standing room only during the evening services. Even as an adult Holy Thursday vespers (the service of the Crucifixion) and Holy Saturday morning and night are really emotional.
We also give out chocolate eggs and small gifts to children. This is all in the UK - so for Orthodox Christians I think Easter is just as important as it was years ago.

Nope. 15% is still really small. All we're debating is how small it is. Certainly small enough that we should stop the pretense that this is a Christian country and recognise it is a secular country.

Oh wow, yes, this is exactly what I remember too! You could only get them from a bakery, only on Good Friday morning ( freshly baked and a queue for them) and yes, you ate them when you got home! I remember them being quite large but maybe that was just because I was small.

British Christian history is already changing at a faster and faster rate. 500 years ago the church decided that its god doesn't hate divorcees and they should be allowed to remarry, 50 years ago the church decided it had been wrong about gay people for 2000 years and that god didn't in fact want them to burn in hell, only 10 years ago the church decided that it had been wrong for 2000 years about god not thinking women could be in charge. Who knows what else the church will decide that it was wrong about. Hopefully the acceptance of child abuse will near the top of the list of things to change.

Your original post doesn't actually involve recalling your own religious observance at all. So to me you are just being nostalgic about how shopping at Easter has changed. For example you seem to want to suggest that you lean towards observing Easter "correctly" but no mention of fasting, charity, stations of the cross, the vigil, The Passion of Christ, mass on Easter Sunday, Ascension etc, so what point are you really trying to make? You are just comparing the commercial aspects of our childhood Easters with the commercial aspects of current Easters. Are you really saying buying stuff and not going to church is fine but only on a smaller number of days?

OP people are giving you a hard time, but I agree with you!

Easter is a made up load of nonsense, just enjoy the springtime and nature.

The true meaning of Easter is personal. The majority of the traditions of Easter (As well as Christmas) come from Pagan and other faiths.

It's now. Not then. Times change for good and sometimes not so good. It's the ebb and flow of the world.

We are from around the same generation and I don't want to go back to that. Then again if you had a good childhood which I didn't then you will see things differently.

Appreciate what you have now

Hasn’t everything become commercialised Xmas, Mothers/Fathers Day, Valentines, Halloween etc? Sign of the times I’m afraid and will only get worse as the years go by

Why?

What is this 'pretence' that you speak of ?

And, have you any idea of the work done by churches to help the community?

If all the churches in UK stopped all their charitable work it would cost the government £billions to fund that service which is done for free.