On Easter Sunday, churches are filled with flowers representing new life, and at home chocolate Easter eggs are given as presents. This represents the triumph of light over darkness. A lot of church services start at midnight the night before Easter Sunday with the lighting of candles or, in Greece, fireworks. Good Friday is traditionally a day of fasting, reflection and sadness. The Last Supper on Maundy Thursday is celebrated in many Christian traditions in the form of the Communion, when believers share bread and wine. On Palm Sunday, many churches bless palm branches and people put them on the ground during processions to mark the day that Jesus arrived in Jerusalem. In many countries there are religious processions during Holy Week, and practising Christians attend special church services. So Easter Sunday is a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. Many Christians believe that Jesus was killed and buried in a tomb on the Friday and that God raised him from the dead on the Sunday. The following day is Good Friday, which is significant for Christians as the day that Jesus was put to death on the cross. Four days later is Maundy Thursday, which marks the Last Supper, when Jesus ate bread and drank wine with his twelve disciples. Many Christians celebrate this as the day that Jesus entered Jerusalem and people threw down branches from palm trees on the road to welcome him. The first day of Holy Week is Palm Sunday, which is the Sunday before Easter. The week before Easter is called Holy Week. The Eastern Orthodox churches, which use a different calendar, have a slightly different way of calculating Easter and usually celebrate Easter a little earlier or later. In Western Christianity, Easter Sunday is the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring, which starts on 21 March. The dates of Easter change from year to year but it usually falls sometime between the end of March and the end of April. These symbols go back to ancient pagan traditions which celebrated fertility, rebirth and new growth after the long, winter months. We see lots of symbols of new life at Easter, especially eggs, chicks, flowers and rabbits. Many non-Christians also have a holiday at this time, so it is a popular time to travel or spend with friends and family. For many Christians, Easter is a celebration of the triumph of life over death, and a very important time of the year. Easter is a Christian festival which marks the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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