The onset of Easter – like that of Christmas – always brings out a rush of nostalgia in me. But unlike the celebratory customs surrounding the feast of Our Lord’s birth (save the ongoing attempts to drown all thought of that fact in a sea of generic “holiday”), those of His Resurrection have changed considerably from the time of my childhood.

I am not referring here to any liturgical changes. Rather, it is the secular side of Easter to which I would like to draw your attention.

As with Christmas, Easter was banned by the Puritans in New England; and again, as with Christmas, we owe much of the American style of Easter to the New York Dutch. From them – although subsequently reinforced by Central European and Scandinavian immigrants – we derive the use and dyeing of Easter eggs. So deeply embedded were the Netherlandish roots of the practice that the largest Easter Egg dye company in the United States – Paas – owes its name to the Dutch word for Easter, Pasen. It is no surprise that the Newark, New Jersey-based inventor and founder of the company purposefully hearkened back to the celebration’s Dutch-American roots.