This year, Easter Sunday falls on March 31 and Easter Monday on April 1. A date that may seem early compared to other years, but there is an explanation.
This year, Easter falls on Sunday March 31. A very special date since Easter Monday will correspond to April 1st, a day of jokes as diverse as they are varied. This year, everyone will be able to take advantage of the public holiday (to have fun playing April Fools or hunting eggs), since the school holidays only begin on April 6. And the date of Easter 2024 may seem very early this year. Last year, for example, we had to wait until April 9. Next year, in 2025, Easter will fall on April 20, as it did in 2014. The religious holiday even took place on April 21 in 2019, April 23 in 2000 and April 24 in 2011.
So why does a holiday that we generally associate with the month of April fall at the end of March in 2024? Easter is originally a Christian holiday that commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, it does not have a fixed date like Christmas, but always falls on a Sunday. The date is determined based on the spring equinox, a decision made in 325 by the Council of Nicaea. The equinox corresponds to the moment when the length of the day is equal to that of the night. This phenomenon only happens twice a year: once in spring and once in winter. However this year, the equinox took place on March 20. To set the date of Easter, you must then look at the date of the full moon which follows it, this is Monday March 25. Easter then falls on the following Sunday.
Following this rule, Easter can actually occur between March 22 and April 25. And this yo-yo in the calendar also has repercussions on other events. Several dates are in fact set in relation to Easter. Lent, a period of devotion to God in Christianity, associated in particular with a fast, traditionally begins a little more than 40 days before Easter and the Ascension, the last meeting of Jesus with his disciples, takes place 40 days later. It will therefore fall on May 9 this year. 50 days after Easter, Pentecost is also held (May 19), which corresponds to the descent of the Holy Spirit among the apostles.
So the egg hunt will take place at the end of March this year. This tradition is also very old. A symbol of fertility and rebirth, the egg has long represented spring. From the 3rd century, the Church associated the egg with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It was also forbidden to consume them before, or during Lent, the eggs collected having to be kept until Easter Sunday. On that date, they abounded on the tables. The arrival of chocolate is, for its part, more recent. It was only from the 18th century that Alsatian and German merchants began to empty chicken eggs to put chocolate inside them. The technique of real chocolate eggs as it exists today then resulted from this.