Did you know that the McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish was created for Easter?? Or that over 700 million Peeps are purchased at this time of year?? I certainly didn’t!! Hit the jump to read some interesting & random facts about today’s holiday and maybe you can share them at the dinner table when there’s nothing else to talk about!!
(DailyNews)–Children hunting for treat-filled eggs today might be too caught up to wonder: where in the world did the whole idea of a bunny that lays colored eggs and hides them come from? And how can a bunny lay eggs anyway?
The answers may be fuzzy at best, but here are some fun facts to digest along with the 700 million Peeps that Americans buy each Easter season:
-The Easter egg, a symbol of new life, is believed to represent Jesus’s emergence from the tomb and resurrection, and has possible ties dating back to ancient pagan festivals celebrating spring.
-Decorating eggs can be traced back to the 1200s. One explanation is that since they were a forbidden food during Lent, they were painted and then eaten on Easter.
-Finding the Easter bunny’s exact origins can get a little hare-y, but the prolific breeders represent new life and fertility. Some studies trace him back to the 13th century, when feasts were held on the spring equinox to worship the German goddess Eostra, the deity of spring and fertility. Her symbol was the rabbit. The mythical furball is believed to have hopped over to the U.S. in the 1700s with German immigrants, who had a story of an egg-laying rabbit named “Osterhase.” Children made nests for it to lay eggs in – which turned into Easter baskets.
-Egg-rolling and egg-hunting are two of the most popular Easter events, and some think that egg-rolling symbolizes the boulder being rolled away from Jesus’s tomb. The annual White House egg roll, where children compete on the front lawn, officially began in 1878 under President Rutherford B. Hayes.
-The largest Easter egg hunt consisted of 501,000 eggs that were sought by 9,753 children in Florida in 2007.
-The very first of the famed Faberg eggs was believed to have been commissioned by Russian Tsar Alexander III for his wife, the Empress Maria Fyordorovna, for Easter in 1885. Known as the Hen Egg, its gold shell was enameled in white, opened to reveal a matte gold yolk, which contained a golden hen with ruby eyes. Inside was a diamond replica of the imperial crown, which hid a ruby pendant. The crown and pendant have since been lost. Of the 50 or so eggs made for Alexander, 42 have survived and 10 are on display at the Kremlin Armoury Museum in Moscow.
-McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish was born of an attempt to save one of the floundering restaurants in 1962 in Cincinnati, which had a large Roman Catholic population that wouldn’t eat meat on Fridays or during Lent. Now 300 million sandwiches are eaten a year nationwide.
-Easter is the second top candy selling holiday in the U.S. behind Halloween, with 90 million chocolate bunnies and 16 billion jelly beans made each year just for Easter.
-The largest chocolate Easter egg ever weighed 14,197 pounds, made in Brazil in 2010.
-When eating a chocolate bunny, 76 percent of Americans bite off the ears first. Five percent eat the feet first and four percent eat the tail first.
-Among the most popular items given up for Lent: alcohol, TV, junk food, chocolate or candy, Facebook, television, gossiping, cursing, smoking and texting.
Sources: The History Channel, Discovery News, Mieks Faberg Eggs, National Confectioners Association, USA Today, Guinness World Records.
