Whether you're celebrating easter on the upcoming days or not at all I thought it'd be interesting to know: is easter actually a pagan religion? Perhaps you can learn something new today and show off your knowledge to friends and family when they least expect it.
When the christian missionaries wanted to convert pagans to christianity they thought the best and easiest way to do so is to incorporate some pagan beliefs with the story of Christ. In reality easter does not represent the historical crucifixion of Christ. It is the coming of spring and the rebirth of nature itself. In fact the gospel reflects about the crucifixion of the sun through the vernal equinox (spring) symbolising the "resurrection" of the sun as the days before longer. The word easter shares the same root as the word "east" because thats the direction of the rising sun. As for the easter bunnies rabbits usually give birth to a big litter of babies during spring also representing new life.
Before christianity "easter" was celebrated all over the world. For example the Greek god Adonis was also crucified and then resurrected during this time symbolizing the rebirth of nature and the coming of the sun. This was also a "easter" celebration in Ancient Rome. Its pretty interesting how skillfully the church planted the seed of new faith into the pagan people. We can see that the easter celebration and the resurrection of Christ was crafted upon much older celebrations of the resurrection of deities. All the symbols such as the crucifixion re-birth and removing of sin are age old pagan motifs rehashed into later christianity. So to summarize all of this easter is a set of pagan beliefs and celebrations adopted by the church. The more you know!