SisterSister: To Dye For

This Sunday Funday we had some extra special guests in town (Big Sis and Adam) so we used our afternoon wisely and dyed Easter eggs. We had such a blast and came up with some pretty awesome creations.

In honor of the upcoming Easter week, we've added some fun facts about the history of Easter Eggs (thanks to wikipedia). Hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed making them.

Easter eggs are special eggs that are often given to celebrate Easter or springtime. As such, Easter eggs are common during the season of Eastertide. In Christianity, they symbolize the empty tomb of Jesus. Though an egg appears to be like the stone of a tomb, a bird hatches from it with life; similarly, the Easter egg, for Christians, is a reminder that Jesus rose from the grave, and that those who believe will also experience eternal life.

Eggs, in general, were a traditional symbol of fertility, and rebirth, pre-dating Christian traditions. The practice of decorating eggshell is ancient. Ostrich eggs with engraved decoration that are 60,000 years old have been found in Africa. Decorated ostrich eggs, and representations of ostrich eggs in gold and silver, were commonly placed in graves of the ancient Sumerians and Egyptians as early as 5,000 years ago.

A sacred tradition among followers of Eastern Christianity says that Mary Magdalene was bringing cooked eggs to share with the other women at the tomb of Jesus, and the eggs in her basket miraculously turned brilliant red when she saw the risen Christ.

In the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, Easter eggs are dyed red to represent the blood of Christ, shed on the Cross, and the hard shell of the egg symbolized the sealed Tomb of Christ — the cracking of which symbolized his resurrection from the dead.