Blog: Easter Traditions in the UK

Written by Student Content Shaper Robin Lapwood  

If you’ve popped into your local supermarket recently you’ll have seen that the UK has gone Easter mad. Easter eggs of all sizes: from bite-sized crunchy ones to massive soft chocolate mega eggs; chocolate Easter Bunnies; Easter cards with pictures of rabbits and fluffy yellow chicks… 

It can be bewildering to make sense of it all — particularly if you come from a country where Easter isn’t celebrated. So here is my guide to all things Easter in the UK. 

In the UK, Easter is a widely celebrated holiday. It usually involves eating a lot of chocolate (always a winner!) and is marked by symbols representing new life and fertility — eggs and rabbits in particular.  

Easter eggs, fluffy chicks and chocolate bunnies make Easter more multicultural: more of a warm-and-happy-Spring-sunshine-chocolate-fest than a solely Christian event. Yet for Christians every Easter is an opportunity to celebrate their belief that Jesus of Nazareth died a sacrificial death and that he rose from the dead after three days, bringing hope and forgiveness to all. In a way then there is both a Christian Easter and a popular (non-Christian) Easter. 

Popular Easter Traditions in the UK 

Here are some of the most common traditions of popular Easter in the UK. Friends and loved-ones gather together to give and receive Easter eggs (the larger and more sweet-stuffed the better); whole families enjoy early morning Easter egg hunts, running around gardens and parks to collect and eat easter eggs which have been hidden overnight. Sometimes whole parks and public gardens take part in this too.  

If you get a chance to join in on an Easter egg hunt, you’ll see for yourself just how invigorating it is to run around in the (hopefully) warm spring sunshine, hunting for chocolate. On a sunny Easter Sunday, it really does feel that the warmth and light of Spring has (at last) arrived and the cold, dark days of Winter have gone — and this connection is not at all accidental as the theme of light is one of the ancient building blocks of our modern Easter celebrations. 

What my Easter will look like 

As a Christian my Easter morning begins before dawn, sitting in my local church in total darkness, holding an unlighted candle. I always feel a really strong connection with the tens of thousands who have worshipped in that building over the past 700 years. When the first light of dawn appears, a fire is kindled outside, and a flame brought into the church and passed in silence from one candle to another — until the whole building glows with light.  

I always have a ‘goosebumps’ moment when my candle is lit. This is partly because of my own Christian beliefs in forgiveness and new life but also because, like my candle, I know I can’t bring light into the darkness of other people’s lives until I too have been ‘kindled’ — set on fire by the light of love. And so, at that moment, as humans have done in some form or other for millennia, I commit myself again to be a light-bearer: to show loving kindness to all whom I meet.  

Ways that you can celebrate Easter 

Easter 2024 falls on Sunday 31 March. Here are some ways you can get involved, whether you are religious or not: 

• If you’re from a Christian background, you may want to attend a Church service. Explore the Churches in Birmingham.  

• The Multi Faith Chaplaincy are also running a Lent event on Wednesday 27 March from 13:00 in the St Francis Hall. Take time together in Lent, for sacred stories, stillness and silence. Open to any student who wishes to attend.  

If you’d like to be kept in the loop with the Multi Faith Chaplaincy, you can subscribe to their newsletter and follow them on Instagram.  

Chocolate is a must so give your local supermarket a visit to see if you can bag an Easter egg deal. Or why not consider setting up your very own Easter egg hunt? If that’s not your kind of thing, take a look at some Easter events happening in Birmingham: 

• Join the Exchange on Monday 25 – Thursday 28 March between 10:00-15:00 for their Easter puzzle. Pick up a self-guided trail and crack the code - get it right and you'll be led to a safety deposit box in The Vaults with a tasty surprise! Find out more. 

However you choose to enjoy this coming Easter Sunday, I hope this blog will have helped you to understand and appreciate it more fully.