Easter was the earliest I’ve seen it in my lifetime this year.    Some Easter trivia:

•  This year Easter is on March 23, 2008 for Western Christianity, only one day later than the earliest it can ever be in Western churches (March 22).
• The last time Easter fell on March 23 in Western Christianity was the year 1913, 95 years ago. Therefore, only a few of us were actually alive then to celebrate Easter.
• The next time Easter will fall on March 23 in Western Christianity is 2160, 152 years from now. It’s doubtful any Western Christians will still be around to celebrate Easter again on March 23.
• Even more remarkable, no one alive today has ever, or ever will celebrate Easter earlier than March 23. The last time Easter fell on March 22 was in 1818, and the next time will be in 2285.

Well, I’ll tell ya!  Because Easter was so early this year, we had more snow on Easter here in St. Paul, Minnesota than we did on Christmas.  It is very, very white out there right now.  When I drove into work this morning, the residential streets were snow-covered and slippery due to more precipitation in the night, and I went into a skid and parked my car on top of a snowbank.  I managed to rock it out without resorting to calling my husband to come help extract me.

That was my good deed for the day: volunteering to work on Easter Sunday morning so that the coworker who was scheduled to work, a nice Lutheran lady, could go to church this morning and then celebrate Easter with her husband and kids by eating chocolate out of the baskets that the Easter bunny brought.  The Buddha would be pleased!

Easter is another one of those interesting holidays, a blend of Christian celebration and a whole lot of paganism.    The Easter bunny has its roots in paganism and was a symbol used in ancient fertility rites.  From an article in the StarTribune newspaper today, “Even the name Easter was ‘borrowed’ from the ancient Saxons, who marked spring with a festival honoring the goddess Eastre.  One of her earthly symbols was — you guessed it — a rabbit.”

I can pass on the fertility rites (unless it involves a little practicing only without the resultant offspring!), but I certainly could use some spring.  We’re very tired of the cold and the snow.  After I got home from work about 12:30 today, my husband and I went out for lunch and then went to the Como Park Conservatory in St. Paul, which is well-known for its trees, plant and flower displays.  Dale took his new camera with him and practiced taking photos of the flowers.  My favorite one is posted here.      The rest can be seen on Flickr.