# Non-Christians:do you celebrate Easter? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 18, 2011, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-christians-do-you-celebrate-easter/568030 "2011-01-18T01:43:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![SecondJudith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@SecondJudith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecondJudith)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-christians-do-you-celebrate-easter/568030/81 "2011-01-21T10:11:26Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > OK, but… the Christian Easter is linked to a Jewish holiday: do you celebrate that one? Easter and Pesach aren’t linked by Jewish people. Am I misreading this? This seems like a really odd observation to make. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-christians-do-you-celebrate-easter/568030/82 "2011-01-21T10:20:20Z")
They are not linked by Jewish people, but it is the celebration which takes place thereabouts the same dates. A lot of the celebratory things which are being mentioned have no relationship with the Christian Easter. If someone had asked “do you paint eggs for Easter?” and all I said was “no”, that answer would be incomplete. The complete answer would be “no, that is not part of my country’s customs; we do (and an explanation of the stuff we do).” If they had asked “do you eat chocolate bunnies for Easter?”, again “no” would be incomplete: “no, we do not do that in my part of Spain, although they do it in other areas (and an explanation on Monas de Pascua)”. ---
**Author:** ![SecondJudith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@SecondJudith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecondJudith)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-christians-do-you-celebrate-easter/568030/83 "2011-01-21T11:29:11Z")
But Pesach isn’t in any way an Easter celebration. Why would we mention it in a thread about Easter? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-christians-do-you-celebrate-easter/568030/84 "2011-01-21T11:34:26Z")
Sigh. I’m sorry, I don’t know how to explain it any better. Maybe my problem is that in Spanish they are the same word (Pascua derives from Pesach), but also in other threads people have happily pointed out “I don’t celebrate Christmas in either the religious or secular forms, but I do celebrate Yule/Chanukah/the Winter solstice”. You’re putting the emphasis on “Christian”, I’m putting it on “holidays thereabouts of that time”. ---
**Author:** ![SecondJudith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@SecondJudith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecondJudith)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2011, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-christians-do-you-celebrate-easter/568030/85 "2011-01-21T11:57:27Z")
Oh, I see! I was confused because I read the thread as being specifically about Easter, as in, “do you celebrate this religious holiday in a secular way?”, like with chocolate bunnies and egg hunts and things, not “do you celebrate any unrelated holidays around this time of year?” ---
**Author:** ![Kilvert\_s\_Pagan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@Kilvert\_s\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kilvert_s_Pagan)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-christians-do-you-celebrate-easter/568030/86 "2011-01-22T20:17:36Z")
Atheist, atheist spouse, raising the kids atheist too. We “celebrate” both Christmas and Easter, but with the kids knowing that what we’re really celebrating are the solstice and equinox holidays that the Christians later co-opted. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-christians-do-you-celebrate-easter/568030/87 "2011-01-23T01:38:01Z")
> [@Fenris](#): > > Jewish. > > Nope. Don’t celebrate it at all. > > Also, first time I had a chocolate bunny was about 8 years ago. I was griping that those chocolate bunnies looked good but I couldn’t quite bring myself to buy one. A friend got me one as a sort-of gag. Th’ damned things are HOLLOW!!! I was so disappointed. I thought they were solid. ☹ Your friend got you one of the cheap ones. The really GOOD ones are solid chocolate. You shouldn’t boycott Cadbury Eggs, though. Those are food of the gods. My family is Catholic – I’m lapsed, and consider myself a plain theist. (I believe in God, but that’s about it). We always get candy for each other, my parents go to church, and then we have a big dinner with ham and home made pierogies. Mmmmm…pierogies. When I was little it was the whole big deal – coloring eggs, fancy Easter dress, Easter basket, sometimes we’d go to my grandparents’, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2011, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-christians-do-you-celebrate-easter/568030/88 "2011-01-23T09:04:49Z")
> [@Apollyon](#): > > Oh, do you get an extra day in Oz? Drat, we (NZ) just get to have both Easter Monday and ANZAC Day on the 25th. (It’s particularly bad this year as _Waitangi Day_ also falls on a Sunday and that one doesn’t get Monday-ized either). ☹ In the US, Easter isn’t a public holiday. Zero days off. (Unless your business closes for Easter, but if you work in an office, you probably wouldn’t be working on Sunday anyway.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-christians-do-you-celebrate-easter/568030.md?page=4)