Enjoy this day celebrating the ancient festival of the resurrection of the seasons, the rebirth of the year, the celebration of the new year, or its newer interpretation as specifically about a particular one of the born-to-a-virgin, talked-to-god(s), performed-miracles, and died-to-rise-again messiah-candidates. All the popular symbols (hatching eggs, bunnies, flowers, etc.) are essentially non-denominational representations of spring and life.
Here’s a Christian site [1] describing Old Testament biblical descriptions of the Easter holiday in the middle east.
New Year? Well, before the Romans brought their winter solstice based calendar into northern Europe, the year began on the vernal equinox. Once the militant Holy Romans began enforcing their rule in Europe, anyone rebelliously caught celebrating a vernal new year was made out to be quite a fool. A hick. Someone over whom anything was easily put.
I won’t go into a description of calendar drift here (why the Equinox is no longer April 1st, nor Christmas/New Year on the Solstice). Christian Easter follows Pesach (by definition), a lunar calendar equinox celebration.
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