Anonymous
03/13/2013 20:22
Subject: Any non-Christian Families give their kids an Easter basket on Easter?
I'm Christian and I don't think the easter bunny/baskets/egg dying/jelly beans part of easter have anything to do with any religion. It's fun and something most kids love. I can see why you'd be trepidatious OP but this part has nothing to do with Jesus so I don't think you'll be stepping on the ties of your beliefs right?
Anonymous
03/13/2013 19:58
Subject: Any non-Christian Families give their kids an Easter basket on Easter?
Yes, Muslim here....kids are 4 and 5. No way out of it. I would still do it even if they are older. I will do whatever to put a smile on their face.
Anonymous
03/13/2013 19:55
Subject: Re:Any non-Christian Families give their kids an Easter basket on Easter?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:We celebrate as a coming of spring and mix in a little Ostara. So we get the bunnies and the eggs. I add in seeds and some gardening gloves and call it a day.
Sounds fun but what is Ostara?
Ostara is a Germanic/Anglo-Saxon fertility goddess whose feast was celebrated in the spring, around the month of April. She was associated with rabbits and hares and with eggs. When Northern Europe and Western Europe became Christianized, some of the traditions around her feast accreted around the Paschal holiday, including the name "Easter."
Easter is like Christmas. It's a mostly Christian holiday that has some old pagan symbols and traditions around it. Lots of modern pagans celebrate Ostara on the Spring Equinox.
Anonymous
03/13/2013 19:44
Subject: Any non-Christian Families give their kids an Easter basket on Easter?
Anonymous wrote:OP here, thanks for the replies. I just wanted to be clear that I have no guilt of any sort. We aren't Christian, we practice another faith. We don't do Easter; it's not an option. I wanted to see how common it is for people of other faiths to do something for Easter. It seems they don't. Only agnostic/atheists do, if I'm reading most responses here correctly. Which is fine. I'll just go with 13:11's suggestion that different families do different things, and not focus the discussion on religion per se, if/when my kid comes home telling me the Easter Bunny gave jelly beans to his Jewish friend, why not him?
I'm 16:44, we are not atheist or agnostic. We do have a different religion. But having the kids run around with their friends looking for hidden plastic eggs is not celebrating a different religion. I see it as a cultural aspect of living in a place where my kids get bombarded by Bunnies and Peeps.
We celebrate it the same way we do Halloween.