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- In the UK, around 80 million chocolate Easter eggs are sold every year.£150 million is shell eggs, and a further £70 million is spent on filled eggs (10% of Britain’s annual spending on chocolate)
- The first chocolate Easter egg was produced in 1873 by Fry’s. Before this, people would give hollow cardboard eggs, filled with gifts. John Cadbury soon followed suit and made his first Easter egg in 1875.
- Easter has its roots in Christian traditions, but the name comes from the the Egyptions and Romans, who worshipped a fertility god named Ostara, the Celtics worshipped a similar god called Eostre. Both “Ostara” and “Eostre” gave us modern words such as estrogen, estrus and Easter.
- Many ancient traditions have the egg as a symbol for life, or life's beginnings. In medieval Europe.
- The tradition of eating eggs at Easter comes from the fasting during Lent where eggs were seen as indulgent and so avoided.
- The practice of dyeing eggs can be traced back to early Greek and Syrian Christians, who exchanged crimson eggs "to represent the blood of Christ,"
- Medieval Easter eggs were boiled with onions to give them a golden sheen. Edward I, however, went one better and in 1290 he ordered 450 eggs to be covered in gold leaf and given as Easter gifts.
- Easter eggs evolved through the 18th and into the 19th Century, with hollow cardboard Easter eggs filled with Easter gifts and decorated,
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culminating with the fabulous Faberge Eggs. Encrusted with jewels, they were made for the Czar's of Russia by Carl Faberge, a French jeweller. - The common ‘crocodile’ pattern that we see on Easter eggs came from Germany and was originally designed to help release the egg from the mould and cover up any minor imperfections in the chocolate.
- On average a child in the UK will receive 8.8 Easter eggs this Easter.
- The date that Easter falls on every year is governed by the Spring Equinox. The first Sunday after the first full moon following the Spring Equinox is Easter Sunday or Easter Day. This formula was set by astronomers in Alexandra in 235ad, and calculated using the same method as the Jews have traditionally used to calculate the feast of the Passover, which occurred at about the same time as the crucifixion..
- Parliament passed a motion in the 1920s to get Easter Sunday to fall on the second Sunday in April every year, but this hasn’t been implemented YET.