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to do with fertility than anything."

OH NO! I shouldn't have mentioned fertility... now he'll be asking me about the birds and the bees as well as bunnies!

Ah that's it! It's all coming back to me now. Easter was named after Astarte the ancient fertility Goddess - it had nothing to do with Jesus at all originally. I was quite pleased with myself that I'd actually remembered something from those distant pre-motherhood years, before my brain cells became numbed by too much time spent at the kitchen sink.

I eventually researched all the necessary information about Good Friday (see below) and explained everything to my son in great depth, adding my own interpretation at the end as I always do.

"You know what I think? If Jesus had come to earth as a housewife instead of a carpenter then he would have been crucified every day of the year and not just on Good Friday."

My observation must have had some impact. That evening - with none of the usual prompting from me - my son offered to help with the dishes. And that night as he slept contentedly, his belly full of Bunnies, I searched my bookshelves high and low for the correct answer to his question. I eventually discovered the following information on the internet:

"Easter falls on the first Sunday subsequent to the first full moon after the vernal equinox (March 21). Thus it can occur as early as March 22 and as late as April 25. (If the full moon after the equinox falls on Sunday, Easter follows a week later.) Originally, Easter was celebrated on the same day as the Jewish Passover. Since the Jewish calendar is lunar, Passover can fall on any day of the week and some Church fathers were distressed that the Lenten fast should end on any day other than a Sunday. They argued about it until the 8th century, when the church officially adopted the procedure we have now. Nobody alive today would have been around to see an Easter Sunday on the earliest possible date of the 22nd. This last occurred 190 years ago in 1818. Only those 95 and over will have been around in 1913 when, as in 2008, it fell on 23rd March. It will be 2160 before it happens again on the 23rd and 2285 when it is next on the 22nd March."

But try explaining all that to a seven year old chocoholic!

Learn more about this author, Stella Kaye.
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