When is Easter 2025 and when are the school holidays?
When is Easter 2025? Easter facts and history of Easter
For many Christians, the most wonderful time of the year is Easter, not Christmas. For pretty much everyone else, it’s all about having a few days off work to overindulge in chocolate and confectionery, at some randomly appointed time at the beginning of spring. Or is it the middle? Who knows?
So, what is actually going on with Easter? Let’s answer all the questions you’ve ever had about Easter but were too afraid to ask.
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When is Easter Sunday 2025 and why does it change every year?
The answer isn’t quite what you might expect, bearing in mind that Easter is about celebrating the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In actual fact, Easter Day is set by the lunisolar calendar, which was created in Mesopotamia around 3000 BC. Note ‘BC’.
The lunisolar calendar is comprised of lunar months that have been adjusted to fit into solar years. Easter is determined by the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal (or spring) equinox.
For example, in 2025, the vernal equinox is on 20th March and the following full moon is on 13th April. Therefore, Easter is on the 20th. I’ll repeat for emphasis, so you don’t forget:
Easter Sunday is on 20th April 2025!
This full moon is also known as the 'pink moon', better known in the Jewish calendar as the start of Pesach or Passover. This celebration remembers the Israelites' freedom from Egyptian slavery between 1300 and 1201 BC.
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What dates are the school Easter holidays in 2025?
While all the adults only get two days off work on Good Friday (18th April) and Easter Monday (20th April), most of the nation's children can get a full two weeks off school. Exact term dates alternate by school and region, but the Easter holidays in 2025 will likely fall between 7th April - 21th April. That's plenty of time for visiting family, doing homework and Easter egg hunts!
When is the rarest Easter date?
Unlike most holidays that occur on the same day every year, the date of Easter changes according to the lunar calendar. But which is the rarest Easter date? According to the Statista based on US census data, between 1600 - 2099, Easter will be marked on 24th March the fewest number of times while the most common Easter date will be either 31st March or 16th April.
Why do Christians celebrate Easter?
Easter covers the seven days that surround Jesus Christ’s crucifixion at the hands of the Romans in Calvary in 30 AD. Known as Holy Week, it begins on Palm Sunday, the sixth Sunday of Lent. Palm Sunday gets its name from the palms waved as Jesus’ triumphantly entered Jerusalem, as specified in all four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Holy Monday and Tuesday are relatively unremarkable, but Holy Wednesday is also known as Spy Wednesday, to acknowledge the day that Judas Iscariot told the Romans of Christ's whereabouts in exchange for 30 pieces of silver. Maundy Thursday commemorates the day of the Last Supper and the symbolic washing of the disciples’ feet. Good Friday we’ll get onto in a second, and we end the week with Holy (or Black) Saturday, before the resurrection on Easter Sunday itself.
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When is Good Friday and what’s so good about it?
Good Friday falls two days before Easter Sunday and, for many people, Good Friday just means a lie-in and a cheeky lunchtime pint or two. However, Christians recognise it as the day that Jesus Christ was crucified which is definitely anything but good!
In Old English, the word ‘Holy’ was ‘Hālig’ which means ‘wholeness’ or ‘good’. So, in English at least, ‘Good Friday’ is actually a rather clumsy way of saying ‘Holy Friday’.
Was spring celebrated before Christianity?
The first moon in spring, marked longer, warmer days and the return to a more bountiful existence. In the days before central heating and instant soup, spring was as much about having survived winter as it was about celebrating new life.
Subsequently, ancient cultures across the globe worshipped spring through their gods and goddesses: Ishtar from Assyria, Astarte from Phoenicia, Demeter from Mycenae, Hathor from Egypt, Aphrodite from Cyprus, and Ostara of Scandinavia. In the case of the latter, the name Ostara means ‘spring’ in paganism and the word derives from ‘Eostre’ (where our word for Easter comes from), the Anglo-Saxon goddess who was even mentioned in the fifth-century writings of the Venerable Bede.
A quick, related, note on hot cross buns, traditionally eaten on Good Friday. The pagans also celebrated spring by decorating bread and cakes with a cross, arguably to symbolise the horns of the Ox, the animal the pagans were believed to have sacrificed to Eostre. Meanwhile, the word 'bun' derives from the Anglo-Saxon word 'boun', which means 'sacred ox'.
Passover or Easter?
In most European countries, the name for Easter derives from the Hebrew word 'Pesach'. Passach or 'Passover is a Jewish holiday that celebrates the the Israelites escape from slavery in Egypt which is recounted in 'Exodus' the second book of the Torah and the Old Testament. Wheras in English and Germany-speaking countries, the word is said to derive from Ē ostre, the Anglosaxon goddess of Spring who first referenced to by the Venerable Bede in the 8th century in his in De Temporum Ratione.
Do other religions celebrate Easter?
Only Christians view Easter as a religious holiday, but many other cultures and religions acknowledge the beginning of spring with festivities. For example, in Egypt, the spring festival is called ‘Sham el-Nessim', a day that the Ancient Egyptians celebrated as the beginning of world creation. In Iran, the spring/new year festival is called ‘Nowruz’ and, in the Punjab and parts of Pakistan they celebrate spring with ‘Basant’, a festival typified by kite flying and yellow flowers.
Islam marks the beginning of ‘Ramadan’ during early spring, a month-long period of fasting and prayer. Hindus and Sikhs celebrate ‘Vaisakhi’ on 13th or 14th April with colourful events and feasting to mark the beginning of the solar new year. In large parts of Asia, they celebrate the Buddha’s birthday, or ‘Buddha Jayanti’, by gathering at temples and lighting lanterns. In Japan, Buddha figurines are ceremonially washed with tea.
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Why does the Easter Bunny bring Easter Eggs?
Eggs have long symbolised new life and fertility. Romans and early Christians considered eggs to be the seeds of life, though, for Christians in particular, eggs are commonly associated with re-birth to commemorate the resurrection. Christianity also forbade eggs during Holy Week, and in some quarters they were banned for the whole of Lent. Therefore, any eggs laid during this period of abstinence were saved up until Easter when they were gratefully received as little objects of desire in their own right.
This inspired the Victorians to stuff satin-covered cardboard eggs full of treats and give them as gifts. and, By the end of the 19th century, the first chocolate eggs began to appear in France and Germany.
However, the giving of eggs as gifts isn’t exclusive to Western traditions. The Chinese have been giving each other painted eggs as springtime gifts for over 5000 years and in Egypt, devotees eat coloured eggs to celebrate ‘Sham el-Nessim'. Decorated eggs are also a significant part of Nowruz, the Persian new year.
As for the Easter Bunny, the sighting of young, overenthusiastic rabbits and hares bouncing about in spring made them an obvious choice as pagan symbols of fertility.
Easter celebrations from British history
From delicious baked treats to unusual sporting events, the British have marked Easter in all kinds of ways over the centuries. Here are the stories behind some of the most interesting (and sometimes mouthwatering) traditions.
Hot cross buns
Warmly spiced and dotted with dried fruit, hot cross buns have been eagerly devoured as part of Easter celebrations for a very, very long time. As a London periodical wryly noted in 1836, ‘This is the season at which all good Christians devour hot cross buns for breakfast, under the comfortable impression that a religious duty is being performed.’
The precise origin of the hot cross bun is hazy, with accounts of similar treats going right back to the Ancient Romans. Many believe that contemporary hot cross buns evolved from the Alban bun, first baked by a monk named Brother Thomas Rocliffe at St Albans Abbey in around 1361.
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Flavoured with currants and an aromatic, cardamom-like spice called grains of paradise, these buns were distributed to the poor on Good Friday and are still proudly made at St Albans Cathedral today.
Hot cross buns became oddly controversial during the reign of Elizabeth I, when their sale was banned except on Good Friday, at funerals, or at Christmas. The exact reason for this seems to be lost in time, but they may have been considered too holy to be scoffed on just any old occasion. It’s also possible they were regarded as politically unsound, evoking the rituals of Catholicism.
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