Why Are Chocolate & Rabbits Part of Easter?

Spoiler alert, if you’re under 25 stop reading now because I’m about to ruin Christmas for you.

Alright I assume everyone who had to stop reading, stopped reading.

Santa-Claus is not real.

Saint Nicholas is.

The jolly fat-man, Santa Claus, is a character, but at least his origin traces back to a real person.

The Easter bunny on the other hand, where did this tale hop out of?

Easter is the celebration of the resurrection of Christ.

American & German immigrants told stories of an egg-laying rabbit.

These stories gave birth to the Easter Bunny.

Immigrant children built nests for the rabbit to lay its coloured eggs in a tradition called Osterhase or Oschter Haws aka German Easter.

The tradition spread to America.

The eggs are an ancient symbol of new life.

Easter eggs are said to represent Jesus’ emergence from his tomb to resurrection.

Decorating and colouring Easter eggs was a popular custom in the middle ages.

Basically the egg and the rabbit represent fertility, birth, and rebirth, in relation to Christ.

But how did chocolate get in the mix?

The first chocolate Easter egg came from simple chocolate wrapped in bright foil paper.

These eggs were made in Europe in the early 19th Century with France and Germany leading the Easter egg rush.

Then John Cadbury came along and made his first French eating Chocolate, in 1842.

The first Cadbury easter eggs didn’t debut until 1875.

A new moulding method allowed the easter egg market to flourish.

The modern chocolate Easter egg; the shape, taste, and texture, owes its existence to two of the greatest developments in chocolate history:

A press separating cocoa butter from the cocoa bean from dutch inventor Van Houten in 1828 and;

The Cadbury process, which made large amounts of cocoa butter available. It is the secret to moulding chocolate of any kind.

The earliest Cadbury eggs were made of dark chocolate.

Easter eggs advanced through Richard Cadbury’s artistic abilities to decorate eggs, giving them fashionable textures, patterns, and colours.

Easter egg sales exploded in 1905 when Cadbury’s Dairy milk chocolate debuted.

The popularity of Dairy Milk increased sales of Easter eggs and established them as seasonal best sellers.

So that’s it, some rabbits, some eggs, some chocolate, some Jesus, and voila, you have Easter.