How did a holiday based on Jesus ever end up with bunnies hopping around hiding eggs? The answer is more logical than you might think.

Some people believe the Easter Bunny was introduced by corporations trying to make the holiday more marketable, but the roots of the bunny are more historical than that.

The Easter Bunny did start out as somewhat of a marketing tactic, but not by corporations. The bunny was used in an attempt to get some of the Celtic people to better understand and accept Christian holidays and beliefs.

Over a thousand years ago, Christians were looking for a way to teach Celts about Passover and the Resurrection. It turned out the Celts had a holiday that took place around the same time called Eostre.

Eostre was a holiday celebrating new life, so it was fairly easy to relate it to the new life Jesus received in the Resurrection. During the celebration of Eostre, animals of spring were used as mascots to represent the holiday.

One of the Eostre animals was the bunny rabbit. The bunny was an animal that could be found everywhere, and could be recognized by a wide variety of people.

This made using the bunny as a symbol for Easter a logical decision. Not only did they take advantage of the bunny mascot, but they also made sure the name of the holiday could be recognized by the groups of people they were attempting to spread the word to.

As for Easter Eggs, the history behind those is a little more hazy. The exact origin is debatable, but it is known that several countries used to dye eggs for spring celebrations. This is most likely where this tradition began.

Over the years, Jesus, the bunny and the eggs have all been somewhat combined into the same holiday. Although some might see this as taking away from the Christian religion, they have actually become part of the tradition. Children and Celts alike have become more attracted to the holiday, which allows them to learn more about what Easter Sunday actually stands for.

Of course, there are other theories on how Easter traditions took root. A different take can be seen below.