Spring Mantel Fantel & Easter Bunny Myth-Busting

Spring Mantel Fantel – Easy Spring Mantel – Mantel Decorating with Bunnies

I didn’t mean to go on a myth-busting adventure, but here I am.

It started with a mason jar I created for the other blog. You know the blog, right? The one that is 100% about mason jar crafts. If not, here’s a link …

Oh, and I let that blog go dormant for 2+ years and I’m trying to revive it. But I’m not sure if it can be revived. Like I’m pretty sure mason jars are soooo 2012. Or perhaps (I’m hoping) mason jars are so out that they’re in again?

But I digress.

Anyhoo. I created a mason jar featuring carrots. For Easter.

And then I got to thinking, why carrots? I mean I get the rabbit-carrot thing, but do rabbits really eat carrots? Or is that just a Bugs Bunny thing?

Turns out (spoiler alert) it’s mostly a Bugs Bunny thing!

What???

You can see the cute carrot mason jar I created and read more about my rabbit/carrot sleuthing here …

But then …

I started wondering, why bunnies for Easter?

It’s a serious religious holiday. A very, undeniable serious one as religious holidays go. What with the persecution and resurrection. That’s some serious stuff.

So how did cute, fluffy bunnies get wrapped up in persecution and resurrection? Not something I would a put together.

And please I’m not making light of people’s religious beliefs here. I greatly respect people’s choice to believe and practice their faith.

But the bunny/Easter connection still nagged at me. So of course I Google’d it.

Oh, and as an aside one of the Google search terms that popped up was “Does the Easter bunny exist?” Methinks some 9 and 10 year-olds are busy online frantically trying to figure out if there truly is a giant bunny that comes silently hopping through their homes with baskets filled with candy and hard boiled eggs to hide. 🙂

But I did land on an article in Parade that explores what bunnies have to do with Easter (you can find the full article here).

And (surprise, surprise), bunnies have nothing to do with Easter.

In fact, there’s only a few rare mentions of rabbits in the Bible. One of which is about whether or not they’re clean to eat.

The article basically concludes that the bunny/Easter thing is of a mashup of pagan rituals about spring and rebirth and Christian beliefs about resurrection. With a little German folklore mixed in.

Sadly this myth-buster doesn’t have a simple explanation. There’s no cartoon rabbit to blame. And shame.