Monday, 18 February 2013

History and Origin of Easter Baskets

All of us love to get beautiful Easter baskets filled with lots of pleasant treats. Celebration of Eastertide remains incomplete without these amazing baskets. They are mostly loaded with delicious egg-shaped jelly beans, chocolates, and other candies. We can also find plastic eggs full of coins or many other things inside them. But, have you ever thought about the origin of the idea of these wonderful Eastertide baskets? Well, if not then this blog post will provide you the perfect knowledge regarding this matter.


The concept of baskets on the Resurrection Day has come from the convergence of different customs and rituals followed by various cultures. These include Judeo-Christian practices, pagan traditions, and Indo-Aryan rituals and so on. It has a close connection with agriculture too. The baskets represent the first sprouts or saplings of the current season that are taken to the temples and dedicated to the God for ensuring a successful production of crops. Basically, these are symbols of something refreshed, renewed, and reborn.


Origin of Eastertide Baskets

However, the newest idea as well as custom of sending Easter baskets as gifts is directly linked to the Western Christianity. According to this belief, the holidays of Eastertide provides the last chance for celebration and enjoying party to people right before they enter the stage called ‘Lent’. It refers to a phase when the pious people stop eating food items such as eggs, meat, dairy, etc., and start fasting. As the phase of ‘Lent’ comes to an end on the day of Eastertide, people fill out large baskets with lots of food items and take those to the temple with an expectation to get blessed by the pastor. So, this is the source of gift baskets that are used for the celebration of Eastertide these days.

Hence, it can be said that Easter baskets are the symbols of doing something new.

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