In America, on Easter or Resurrection Sunday as it is often called, families dress up in their finest clothes and invite members of the family or friends they rarely speak to any other time of the year to attend church. They may get up early or go to the second service, to hear sermons on the resurrection. Afterwards, they often go to a restaurant or there is a pitch-in meal at someone's home. The meal is typically ham/pork perhaps in reference to Christianity's symbolism of being freed from the Jewish dietary law, which was really about God's calling non-Jews "clean", in giving them the ability to be part of the New Covenant (see Acts 10:9-15). Sometimes, depending how religious the family is there are Easter-egg hunts, plastic-grass filled baskets with chocolate bunnies and jelly-beans.
Does anyone know the origin or history of this holiday in America? Because America was originally very "Puritan" and Calvinisti, neither Easter nor Christmas was observed before the Civil War. From all appearance, Easter with its bunnies seems to have been brought to America by Germans.
