Hey everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Understandable English Podcast. And today we are talking about a very popular holiday around the world in many places, and it is called Easter. So as I record this podcast, today it is Easter weekend and tomorrow is called Easter Sunday. So today I want to talk about is Easter a popular holiday in the UK? So we are going to look at the history of Easter in the UK.
We're going to look at how people celebrate it, So what they do and how it has changed, so how the holiday has changed over time, oh, around the time of Easter. It has reasons in history for being a holiday, both religious region reasons so related to religion and non religious, so like Pagan origins outside of organized religion.
So one of the most common reasons why Easter is celebrated is to commemorate, so to remember the resurrection of Jesus Christ within Christianity, so to celebrate the belief. So they believe that Jesus died and then came back to life. So he came back to life again. And Good Friday. So the Friday of the weekend is the day that people remember Jesus died, and then Sunday is usually remembered as the day he came back to life.
So three days later. And this celebration of Easter within the Christian Church, both the Catholic and Protestant and other denominations were types of Christianity is still popular to this day, so it's been popular for a long time. But there are other origins of Easter, and Easter actually has Pagan origins, and there were festivals around this time which were before, even before Christianity.
And this is with festivals dedicated to the goddess Easter or Eostra is how it's spelt and it symbolizes rebirth and renewal around spring. And the name Easter actually is derived from E Oster Easter or Ostara who is that ancient goddess that people believed in and she was the goddess of spring and fertility in their beliefs. So this celebration or festival was actually not from organized religion, it wasn't from Christianity originally.
But it is an important time now for for both religion and for family. So some activities, traditional Easter celebrations in the UK, so people use it as a fun family celebration now and one thing they like to do is to give each other Easter eggs and have Easter egg hunts. So they decorate and give chocolate eggs. It's a very popular tradition in the UK and another one that I loved when I was a child was Easter egg hunts.
So parents or adults hide chocolate eggs around maybe the house or the garden or school and the children have to try and find those eggs. It is such a fun, good Easter tradition. I love it. Another popular way is to eat hot cross buns. And hot cross buns are spiced sweet buns like a bread with a cross on top and these are traditionally eaten on Good Friday. And finally, there are Easter
parades. So when people maybe dress up in costumes and dance in the street right across a lot of UK towns and cities. And these are exciting, happy times for families. But one of the most popular and common ways in the UK is to have a family gathering or a meal. So Easter is a time for families to come together, enjoy a special, maybe bigger meal and to give each other little gifts
sometimes. And these traditional meals often include, for example, roasted lamb, potatoes, vegetables and some nice desserts. People also might go to an Easter Sunday church service together just to celebrate and remember this holiday. But like everything, Easter has become very commercialized. So all about buying things. Lots of hot Easter drinks, Easter eggs, chocolate, sweets, decorations. It is a big commercial holiday, so holiday about buying things.
And like any holiday it has definitely changed over time. So Easter has become a lot more secularized. That's a very difficult word. So it basically means it has become a lot less religious over time. So it's become more of a family holiday for everyone. And a lot of people will focus now on, you know, the Easter Bunny, which is a Bunny that parents tell their children brings them chocolate eggs on Easter.
They'll focus on Easter egg hunts and chocolate treats rather than the kind of religious significance or importance of the holiday. This simply comes from the fact that the UK now is a very multicultural society, so there are lots of different cultures and religions, but they can all still come together and celebrate holidays even if they don't celebrate the religious element or part of it.
And even with this change in Easter over time, it still remains a popular and important holiday in the UK and it combines both the religious and the non religious. It's a holiday that has something for everyone now. By the time this podcast probably is uploaded and I think Easter will have already happened and I will have finished my Easter holidays, which in the UK are very nice.
So you get a day off work, a bank holiday on the Friday and Monday so you get a nice four day weekend, which is fantastic. Very nice long weekend without work. But by the time this podcast is uploaded it will probably be Tuesday or Wednesday. So I hope you had a very nice weekend. If you celebrated Easter, Happy Easter. If you didn't, I hope you have a
nice weekend anyway. I know in some places or some countries they celebrate Easter on a different date or a different slightly different time of year. So if it's like that in your country, I still hope you have a great Easter in the future. This weekend I am going to have or going to spend some time with my family, my wife, have a nice meal I think together and I think we are going to go to a church service together for my parents so it will be nice and
relaxed. So thank you so much for listening and I hope you enjoyed this episode. I will speak to you all soon. Have a lovely rest of your day. Goodbye.