Fun Facts about Easter

Most people know that we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ at Easter. However, there is a lot more to learn about the holiday. If you want to show off with some fun facts during Easter brunch, you can find some on this page.

It is widely known that a bunny hides the eggs on Easter Sunday. But do we know why he does it? Until a few hundred years ago, it used to be the fox, the cuckoo or the raven who hid the sweets in our gardens. The bunny probably won out against them because we see him as a symbol for life and a herald of spring.

There is also a story about how rabbits used to come to our gardens after the winter to look for food. Since they are usually very elusive creatures, people used to believe that they came to their gardens to hide Easter eggs.

Since rabbits and especially wild hares are something of a plague in Australia, they are not allowed to hide the Easter eggs anymore. Instead, the Australians have the Easter Bilby. He is severely suffering from the rabbit invasion, since he also lives in tunnels underground, which the rabbits have been occupying.

That is why people advocate for the Easter Bilby since the 1990s. Of course, there are also Easter Bilbys made from chocolate. I wonder if they taste just as good as Easter Bunnies?

The most expensive »Easter Eggs« in the world come from St. Petersburg and were fabricated in the workshop of world famous goldsmith Peter Carl Fabergé. That is why they are called »Fabergé Eggs«. Tsar Alexander III actually gifted these eggs on Easter. Since he did not want to give his wife regular chicken eggs, he had these valuable eggs made from precious metals, jewels and glass.

Most of us sadly cannot put one of these eggs into our Easter baskets, since the most expensive one, the so-called »Rothschild Egg«, was auctioned off in 2007 for 12.5 million euros.

Tip: A predecessor of the Fabergé Eggs, the »Golden Egg of August the Strong» can be visited in the Green Vault in Dresden.

Chocolate is extremely popular. Especially around Easter time, you can see it everywhere: as eggs, bunnies or even chicks. In 2021, there were 214 million Easter eggs produced – just in Germany. That means they were far more popular than chocolate Santa Clauses, since there were only about 176 million of them.

»From the ice they are freed, the stream and brook«. This is the first line to a very famous German poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, called the Osterspaziergang (Easter Walk). The poem is featured in a drama called Faust I.

Parts of this drama are set in and around Leipzig, where Goethe went to university. This is the reason why many people think that that the Easter walk took place in Leipzig.