he Easter Bunny is a sneaky but predictable creature.
Every year, on the first Sunday after the spring Equinox, it sneaks into homes on silent paws and hides baskets of eggs, candy and gifts for children to find in the morning.
The bunny, relieved to get rid of the heavy baskets, then disappears for another year, leaving behind neither hide nor hare.
Though there is no shortage of guesses, no one can even say for sure what color, size, age or sex the Easter Bunny is.
And just how it carries those baskets stuffed with goodies is as intriguing as how a rabbit became associated with a Christian holiday that gives no value to the four-legged creatures.
Because the rabbit holds no religious significance for Christians, Andrea Bendert, a medical technology freshman, said she has ambivalent feelings toward the animal.
“As a Christian, I feel that it does detract from the overall view of what Easter is supposed to be,” she said. “It’s not about getting candy in a basket, it’s about Jesus Christ dying on the cross.”
Many historians say the Easter holiday itself is a result of mixing the pagan celebration of the beginning of spring and the Christian celebration of Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead.
As a result of the fusion, the hare, symbolic of spring fertility, became forever linked with the Christian holiday, beginning in the 16th century when it first appeared in German writings.
The Easter hare landed in the Pennsylvania Dutch Country during the 1700s when it was imported by German settlers.
History Professor Leslie Moch said the animal began to be known as the Easter Bunny in the 19th century “because the hare was a relatively uncommon animal in North America (and) greeting card companies preferred terms like bunny and rabbit to hare.”
And though her holiday celebrations don’t center on the Easter Bunny - or the hare - Bendert said she’ll keep the centuries-old tradition alive.
“If I have children I’ll still have the Easter Bunny hide a basket, but I would also stress the true meaning of Easter, kind of like Santa Claus and Christmas,” she said.
For people of other religions, the Easter bunny holds even less meaning than it does for Bendert.
Jessamyn Ressler-Maerlender is a Green Fellow for Jewish Community Service at Hillel Jewish Student Center, 402 Linden St. Though as a Jew she doesn’t celebrate Easter, she prefers the Easter Bunny to other Easter images.
“Easter is such a sad holiday in many ways,” she said. “It historically marks a time when there was increased persecution against the Jews, and so it’s preferable to me to have the holiday associated with a happy, light character than with
