The "Easter Bunny Visits Harrington Drive" Story

Foreword:  I wish all Christians a Happy Easter on this Easter Sunday.  Today's story is a prelude to a few stories on Easter.  Thanks for visiting with me!

It was an ordinary day.  Reading about how the rabbit, or hare, came to be associated with the Christian celebation of the resurrection of Jesus.  

The Easter Bunny wishes you a
joyous Easter Sunday.

On Easter Sunday the Easter bunny makes a visit to LDubs home on Harrington Drive in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  He, or she, traditionally brings chocolate eggs which are placed in the baskets of our grandchildren.  But, just how did the tradition or the legend of the Easter rabbit begin.  The name Easter was first appropriated by the Christian calendar.  First it was the pagan festival Ostara, celebrated on the vernal equinox, around March 21 in the Northern hemisphere.  Ostara was named for the pagan goddess of spring, Eostre.  And, the legend goes that she once saved a bird whose wings had frozen during the winter by turning it into a rabbit.  Because the rabbit had once been a bird, it could lay eggs.  Hence, it became the Easter Bunny.  The rabbit as a symbol for Easter is first mentioned in writings in 16th century Germany.  Pennsylvania Dutch settlers, many arriving in Lancaster County, brought the Easter bunny to America in the 1700s.  Their children used their hats and bonnets to make their nests and the "Oschter Haws", or Easter Hare, would fill their headgear with colored eggs.  

The Window of Three Hares as seen in Paderborn
Cathedral in Paderborn, Germany.

The first edible Easter bunnies, made of pastry and sugar, were also produced in Germany in the early 1800s.  Around that time, the Easter nests, which we make today in small baskets with plastic colored straw, began to be found in the spring gardens of children's homes to be filled during the night with brightly decorated eggs.  The Easter egg hunt still happens in houses in Lancaster County today much as they did years ago.  My three grandkids, even though one is a year away from getting her driver's license, still look forward to searching the grounds of our "Beach House" for the eggs left by the Easter Bunny.  And this year, to make it even more realistic, we have an actual rabbit that has found a home in the trees to the rear of our home on Harrington Drive.  Our own real "Oschter Haws" has arrived in time for Easter Sunday.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.