You might have been on an Easter egg hunt or eaten a chocolate bunny to celebrate the holiday, but how much do you know about where Easter traditions came from?

Everyone is familiar with the Christmas tree, but not so much with its springtime cousin, the Easter tree.

Towns in Germany and Austria have been known for these colorful creations. Discover more about these Easter tree traditions...

All around the world, Easter is celebrated in different ways, but there's one colorful element that is universally included... the flower! 

As Easter coincides with the start of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, lilies, tulips, daisies, and daffodils have become popular Easter flowers. Find out more about how this tradition has bloomed all over the world.

It’s not clear why it’s a tradition to eat sweetened bread at Easter, but people don’t usually mind an excuse to enjoy a delicious pastry.

One baked good that is popular at Easter is the hot cross bun: a sweet, spiced bread made with raisins or sultanas. Have a look at the tasty traditions around the world.

Rewind 200-years-ago and the only eggs you would find at Easter were real ones. By the 19th century however, French and German confectioners hatched a clever plan to create a sweeter treat.

By the time Cadbury started making chocolate eggs in 1905, this tradition had gone global. Fast forward to present day, millions of chocolate eggs are enjoyed every year in the UK alone. Discover the story of how chocolate makers cracked Easter.

Children around the world might be familiar with the frenzied hunt for chocolate eggs hidden by the Easter Bunny.

This developed from a Christian Easter tradition – which commemorates the resurrection of Jesus – to incorporate the Easter Bunny. Find out more about how the bunny hopped into Easter celebrations around the world.

Move over Easter Bunny, there’s a new creature in town! In Australia, it’s all about the Easter Bilby, a small marsupial with long ears, a pointy snout, a black and white tail, and gray fur.

As rabbits weren't a native species and caused huge amounts of environmental damage when Europeans brought them over in 1788, it's no surprise that Aussie’s decided to celebrate the bilby instead. Get to know more about this rabbit-eared bandicoot.

In France, on the Thursday before Easter, church bells fall silent. Why? According to tradition, they’ve sprouted wings and flown to Italy to collect colored eggs to distribute to children back in France. Discover more about this unique tradition.

To the relief of dentists, not all Easter celebrations involve eating sugar. In fact, in many places around the world it’s far more common to decorate a real egg.

All around the world, cultures observe Easter in different ways but there’s one tradition that is universal: the flower. For the Northern Hemisphere, Easter coincides with the start of spring, where flowers begin to bloom and the trees begin to bud.

This natural display of new life is hard to miss, so even below the equator where the seasons are changing from summer to autumn, Easter festivities still incorporate flowers. Just like eggs, fluffy yellow chicks, and bunnies, flowers represent fresh beginnings and rebirth.

Homes and shops everywhere make the most of this seasonal burst of color by displaying vibrant arrangements of flowers throughout the Easter celebrations. Easter meals often include a floral centerpiece on the table and churches host elaborate flower festivals as a symbolic nod to the resurrection.

Popular Easter flowers even hold varying meanings. White lilies are considered a very traditional Easter flower as they are an ancient symbol of the resurrection, representing purity and hope. The daffodil is a common first sign of spring across the world and in Germany are known as the “Easter bells”. Other popular symbols include the tulip, the daisy, and the azalea.

Around Spain and other Latin American countries, extravagant processions are commonplace at Easter (known as Semana Santa, or Holy Week) where parade floats of intricate religious scenes are embellished with bright clusters of flowers.

Processions also take place in the Philippines, where children dress as angels and throw flowers on passers-by. Another widespread custom involves palm fronds (palaspas) blessed on Palm Sunday, which are believed to ward off bad luck, lightning, and fires if displayed in the home for the following year.

On the night before Easter Sunday in Ouro Preto, Brazil, flower petals are used to create a 4km-long colorful carpet that stretches along the streets of the town. The petals are arranged into intricate patterns together with sand and colored sawdust, creating a path for the Semana Santa procession to walk from church to church the next day.

Rewind 200-years-ago and the only eggs you would find being passed around at Easter were real ones (albeit beautifully decorated). It wasn’t until the early 19th century that confectioners hatched a clever plan to create an alternative sweet version.

French and German chocolatiers are credited with inventing the chocolate egg, although they were very dark and bitter when first produced. Chocolate was so expensive at the time, that eggs were exclusively enjoyed by the wealthy. The Easter eggs that were available were also completely solid, as manufacturers hadn’t yet found a way to easily mold chocolate.

In 1828, the Dutch inventor Van Houten invented a press that could efficiently separate the cocoa butter needed to make smoother, moldable chocolate from the cocoa bean. Then, in 1866, the Cadbury brothers introduced a method for producing cocoa butter in large quantities. Now chocolate eggs could easily be mass produced and the eggs could be made hollow, ready to be filled with sugared almonds or sweets.

The sale of chocolate at Easter was truly secured as an Easter tradition when Cadbury introduced milk chocolate eggs in 1905, which proved to be hugely popular. Nowadays, around 80 million eggs are sold each Easter in the UK alone.