An American Easter: Culture and Vocabulary

🌟 Episode Highlights

• what is Easter?
• Easter traditions
• my Easter before & now

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Transcript

Hello, hello! Welcome to English Extras! I’m Jean, your guide to making your English sound natural and authentic.

If you are an intermediate or advanced learner, this podcast is for you because I’m here to teach you the way native speakers really say things.

If you want to follow along with today’s episode, I put a link to the transcript in the description for you. It’s full of all kinds of good things to help you take your learning to the next level. And the best part? It’s absolutely free.

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Today is April 22nd, 2025. Two days ago was Easter, one of the big holidays of the year here in the US. What do you know about Easter? How would you explain Easter to a stranger? Did you know that there are two different sides of Easter here in the US? There’s the religious side and the secular side, and each celebrates the holiday differently.

So, in this episode, I’m going to teach you some Easter-related vocabulary while explaining the cultural part of the holiday so you can feel more confident telling people what you know about Easter.

Let’s get started!

So, first of all, what is Easter? Easter is a Christian holiday that celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. To explain, a Christian is someone who follows the religion of Christianity, which is based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Resurrection means to bring something back to life that was once dead. If you’re a Christian, then you believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross, and afterward, His body was placed in a tomb. A tomb is a place, usually made of stone, where a dead body is placed. It’s one way people bury–or put–someone’s body after they die. Christians believe that three days after Christ died, He returned to life.

Easter celebrates that belief.

For practicing Christians–meaning Christians who actively participate in their faith by going to church, praying, and trying to follow Christian rules in their daily life–Easter is a special time to reflect on new beginnings and on the sacrifices of Jesus Christ. Many go to a special church service. A service, when talking about church, is when believers gather in one place, and a church leader will give a speech (often called a sermon). 

But, in America, not everyone is a practicing Christian. If you are not religious, or if you have a different religious belief, there are other ways to still have fun on Easter.

You know how Christmas–which, in America, is the winter holiday celebrated on December 25–has both a religious part about the birth of Jesus Christ but also a non-religious part about Santa Claus? Easter has the same. Easter has a religious part about celebrating the resurrection of Christ, but also has the Easter Bunny.

Bunny is another word we use for a rabbit. The Easter Bunny is a fun, imaginary character, like Santa Claus, and children are told that the Easter Bunny hides colorful eggs for them to find.

Let me explain further. Every Easter, families will often come together with their community or on their own and have an Easter egg hunt. An Easter egg hunt is an activity where children wait–often impatiently–while the ‘Easter Bunny’ hides plastic eggs that have candy, toys, or money inside them. After all the eggs are hidden, the children are released, and the hunt is on! The children have baskets with them, and they try to find as many eggs as possible.

When I was a child, my family went to church. So we would wake up, dress up very nicely, go to church, and then after church, we would meet with my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. First, we would have a big meal together. Because I grew up in the American South, the food often included a pork roast (which is a way of preparing pig meat), mashed potatoes, cole slaw, and various vegetables and breads. After eating, it was time for the Easter egg hunt.

Oh, I loved the Easter egg hunt. We always gathered at my aunt’s house and she had a really big backyard with a few trees and bushes and little places to hide eggs. There were enough children in my family to make the event fun, and the weather was often just right: not too hot and not too cold. When I think about Easter as a child, I remember wearing my best dress on a bright, sunny day, holding an Easter basket, and running around after my brother, trying to find more eggs than he did.

Inside the eggs, there was either candy, money, or a small piece of paper with a number on it. The number was important. You kept the paper and after all the eggs were found, we gathered in front of my aunt and uncle. My aunt and uncle had a huge variety of toys and they would call out numbers, starting with 1, and each child with that number could come up to them and choose a toy.

Those are happy memories for me.

Now, celebrating Easter is a little quieter. I don’t live near my own family anymore, and I’m also not a child, so for me now, Easter looks like dressing a little nicer, going to my in-laws’ house, having a big meal, and maybe having some chocolate. My husband’s family doesn’t have a lot of children, so we don’t have a big Easter egg hunt, but I still enjoy this time because I’m always excited to have good food and hang out with my family.

Returning to the point, as Easter approaches, stores will often begin decorating with pastel colors. Pastel colors are lighter versions of a basic color. For example, light green, light blue, light pink, and light yellow are very common colors to see in stores, advertisements, candies, and clothes around Easter time. Pastels are associated with springtime in general.

There’s also special candy that becomes available around Easter time. The most famous is Peeps. Peeps is a brand of candy, specifically marshmallows. A marshmallow is a sweet, very soft candy. Peeps are shaped like animals, often little chicks, but can also be bunnies and they’re often in pastel colors, most often yellow. I encourage you to Google ‘peeps’ and see for yourself.

This is also the time when you can buy chocolates shaped like eggs or bunnies. These shapes are so closely related to Easter that you don’t really see them any other time of year.

You’ll also see religious decorations around this time. For example, many people will put signs outside their houses that say ‘He is Risen’ or even sometimes on their cars. ‘He is Risen’ is a phrase that references the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Risen is the passive form of to rise which means to come up, to lift up. In this case, to lift up out of death. Christians use this phrase as a short way of saying “Jesus is alive again.”

I’m curious about how Easter is celebrated in your country, or if you celebrate Easter at all. If you don’t celebrate Easter, is there a popular springtime celebration in your country?

In any case, I hope this episode has helped you feel more prepared to explain what Easter is and what it looks like in the United States. Make sure to tell your friends what you learned! It will help you remember it better.

As always, thanks for joining me. Until next time! Bye!