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.

For us Holy Week and Easter weekend are for church, food and family. This is my children’s experience too. We have a traditional lamb roast. Easter Monday we tend to go for a walk and do the Easter egg hunt or Sunday afternoon if we aren’t too tired.
They love coming to church and having a shared Easter breakfast plus Easter bonnet parade.
Maundy Thursday in an Anglo Catholic Church is spectacular. If you haven’t experienced a service with the watch, you’ve missed out in my view.
I’m in my mid thirties. Not everyone wants or has succumbed to a very commercial Easter weekend.

Yes, after Sunday school we decorated our hard boiled eggs then rolled them down a hill in the park too. My sister and I competed to see who could make their chocolate egg last longer - I never won that one.

We always had chicken for Easter lunch as it was very expensive in those days so a rare treat - and yes, hot cross buns only on Good Friday.

80s kid here but I don’t recognise any of that really. I vaguely remember the Easter bonnet competition at infant school and getting chocolate eggs which I rarely ate as I didn’t like chocolate (oh how that’s changed! 😅)
That’s it really.
We aren’t a religious family though.

Neither had I until my mum put one up the other day! I told her it wasn't a thing but a friend said she spent time in Eastern Europe a few years ago and it's quite a big tradition there so she has now adopted it for her own home.

The short answer is that most people can't remember the 60s, what with it being ~60 years ago.
We used to go to Germany for Easter in the 90s and the main highlight was that we got a gift, as this wasn't a thing in the UK, rather than anything religious, as we weren't a religious family. As pp have mentioned, Easter trees were also part of it. I can't see how you find the German/Austrian Easter 'aesthetic' so offensive - it is much more traditional and less commercialised than in the UK
Easter is a nice long weekend for us - previously for socialising, now to spend as a family

We aren’t a Christian country any more, and ultimately everything these days is about business making money. They can profit from our greed, so they do

I am in my early 70s and don't remember it but apparently went on a coach trip (Chester zoo?) at Easter when I was a toddler. I ate so much chocolate that I was sick on the coach. It was certainly all about chocolate eggs in 1957!

trigger warning for @PistachioTiramisu -and possibly others

Lidl sell hot cross buns ALL YEAR ROUND. Yes, 363 days of the year you can buy a curranty treat! Hurrah to that I say!

Born early 70’s, your description of Easter makes me feel like the walls are closing in around me. It’s like every miserable Sunday of the 70s.

I grew up a practicing catholic and I do not at all miss or have good memories of Holy Week mass or stations of the cross or Good Friday mass.
I do have some fond memories of Easter Sunday mass but then it was picnics and egg decorating and rolling. So basically the bits I loved were the celebration of spring. And as an atheist that’s what we still do, celebrate spring.

Christians do their thing but don’t come at the rest of us for doing our thing. We’ll have a family lunch with grandparents and buy daffodils and eat hot cross buns then on Monday spend all day outside on a family hike or bike ride.

I think it's perhaps a shame that shops don't still close.

They do here & also don't open Sundays.

Some small non-food shops in town still close Wednesday afternoon.

What are the hooded figures for? I saw a clip of this on Insta, KKK vibes. Otherwise it looked very intriguing!

I agree, easter here had lost it's meaning. It used to be more of a thing, families getting together for an occasion, religious or not.

Now its just, have some chocolate.

So, do we all hold hands and go and buy our one, traditional, rationed hot crossed bun per year together as a community?

Or, can we just send dp to the Coop, like I did this morning? He came back with the buns and a Terry's chocolate orange, so we're having an Easter Christmas mash-up!

I'm in my sixties and when people ask me what has changed in my lifetime I say everything. Everything has changed.

Someone once asked Mary Berry if the old ways were better than the new ways and she replied, 'Not better or worse. Just different.' It's true.

I remember Easter as a child being church, chocolate and a roast dinner.

The difference really is how very still and quiet Easter was then. Shops closed, everything closed and people stayed quietly at home with their families. The only sound was church bells. It's hard to describe if you weren't there but the peace and still feeling of lockdown reminded me of the seventies a bit.

It was a bit boring as a kid but I would give a lot to experience that still world now as an older woman.

Only thing I am disappointed with is the eggs have been on diets there now so much slimmer and so much more expensive. Gutted.

That’s your own personal experience. It doesn’t mean it was the same for everyone. I’m a child of the 70’s and it’s not a description I recognise.

That's why I said 'I remember' and not 'Everyone alive in the 1970s had the exact same experience that I did in the Somerset village where I was raised.'

My childhood Easters were pretty much like that, too, but we also had loads of stuff going on at school, decorations, cards and food being made.
Plus we alternated an Easter basket or an Easter bonnet parade every year, decorated by long suffering mothers. What would we have done without crepe paper and those tiny bright yellow fluffy chicks from Woolworth's?

Now, as pagans, we celebrate the fertility aspect of Spring, new shoots, new beginnings, etc, which the Christians joined in on, with death and resurrection and so forth. (That's why you get Easter bunnies😉)

But they are holding an all night dark vigil in our village church, with all the lights going on to celebrate Easter Day. Sounds lovely.
And they generally have one of Bach's Passions on Radio 3, which they did yesterday, St Matthew, absolutely glorious.
So the Christian aspect is still around.
Except that apparently the King chose not to give an Easter message, which some people feel contributes further to the secularisation of Easter.

Hot cross buns are simply too nice to only eat once a year.

Easter Saturday was a 'fun' day, buying nice food for Sunday.

OP, when I was at school my teachers would have been up in arms if anyone had described Easter Saturday as a fun day- it's one of the most solemn days in the Christian calendar, Jesus is literally in hell 😂Can't believe you went to the shops, what about the true meaning of Easter etc etc😂

(I mention this not because I actually think you did Easter wrong but just because it shows that things have always changed. It's very tempting to see how things were when we were children as the right way to do things, but in fact that's just how things were at one moment in time for one family.)

FWIW I think your childhood Easter sounds very nice and is much like my Easter was and is (although I'll go to church). You don't have to join in with any bits you don't like, and there are lots of Easter programmes on TV and radio tomorrow.

I think UK is pretty bad for having let our customs go. I was talking to my Spanish hairdresser yesterday and he was telling me about the amazing Spanish Easter traditions.
I think other European countries have them too and have maintained them.
In the UK people value their freedom to stuff themselves with hot cross buns and chocolate whenever they want.
Personally, I think it's a shallow freedom and , yes, of course it's commercial!
You're right, OP, but of course times and attitudes change.
It's all swings and roundabouts, so perhaps there will be a return to these things in the future.

We did an egg hunt for DS and are having roast lamb today because I work (by choice) on a Sunday. Yesterday was a fairly normal day for us. We have an Easter Tree because DH is Swedish and it’s a Swedish tradition. I’ve been eating Easter chocolate since February. What does it matter in the grand scheme of things?

I'm nearly 40, so wasn't around in the 70s, but I think the difference is just that fewer people observe Easter in the same religious way as before.

We're practising Catholics in our family, with Polish roots, so we do do quite a lot of religious stuff, as well as the chocolate egg-related stuff and getting together with family for lunch tomorrow.

I haven't participated in fasting this year or been to all the Holy Week services, as I'm breastfeeding a young baby and looking after my two older DC as well. But we've been to Mass on palm Sunday, my oldest DS took part in children's stations of the cross, and we will definitely be at Mass tomorrow.

My mum is taking a basket of food to be blessed at the Polish church today which we'll eat for breakfast tomorrow, and we're getting together with the in laws and my brother's family later tomorrow and on Monday. There will be plenty of chocolate and hot cross buns, too. Altogether it's pretty similar to Easter when I was a kid.

The difference from 50 years ago I guess is that you know most people around you aren't stopping normal life and celebrating Easter in the same way as you. Perhaps people miss that really communal aspect to the celebrations. But actually, our church has been pretty well attended during Lent and I'm sure will be packed tomorrow. Community is there if you look for it and are willing to participate.

I haven’t read through the thread but I will later as I’m interested in other’s opionions. The start of the 60s was 65 years ago and if you were to go back 65 years before then you would be in the of the Victorian era and life would have looked very different. I bet there were people in the 1960s staying the same thing as you are today OP.

Have you been to Beamish museum? It’s amazing - my mind is blown by the difference between the Victorian high street and the 1950s town.

grew up in practising christian household. Easter was a chocolate egg not eaten until easter and church as normal. Sometimes met family on one the days off and did an egg hunt in garden but low key and if anyone had remembered to plan it 😆 No decorations other than what we made at school. Sunday roast as normal, not typically lamb.

Im still a practicing christian but probably have more structure and planned activities with DC. I’ve decorated lightly - easter tree in window, egg wreath and fresh daffodils in hanging baskets etc. Not exactly christmas level but I enjoy the colours and the spring fresh feeling. Doing a lamb roast today as away tomorrow seeing family/church. I will do and egg hunt easter Monday with neighbouring kids as weather is nicer and tomorrow DC gets an easter basket of an egg and some easy easter crafts /activities (to keep her quiet during church service). I don’t do the whole easter gift thing typically but if i do it’s an outside toy i’d bought anyway and tied with an easter bunny drop off. I also make an effort to get outside on easter weekend/fri/monday e.g. all together as a family cycling, national trust walk etc but weather dependent.

I’d say I definitely mark’ easter more than my parents did even as practicing christian’s growing up, but part of it may be because with secularisation of UK it had become such a non event in the culture I do my best to give it a defined nod (even if most of the activities are pagan linked than christian). I also want DC to remember having fun and a few ‘traditions’.

The christian denomination I’m partnof is quite low key on easter as a whole and tends to emphasise acknowledging the resurrection via communion every sunday etc so church is quite samey on easter and not too different than a regular service.

you don't have to do anything you don't want to...eg I don't fast for Eid or observe Passover.