Easter

Celebrated on March 31, 2013

Facts

2013 Easter Greeting Card Features

• Hallmark offers more than 600 Easter card designs. The cards range from religious to humorous and touch on the key elements of the season, such as kids, family, religious significance and springtime rejuvenation. Card prices start at 99 cents.
• This Easter, look to Hallmark Gold Crown® stores for the widest variety of unique and innovative cards including:
  • Hallmark Signature Collection cards for Easter are truly unique, just like a signature. The exquisite textures, premium quality paper, fun embellishments, and relevant messages are sure to help Hallmark Signature Collection cards become holiday favorites.
  • Dayspring Reason for the Season cards are faith-based Easter cards intended for adult and child recipients. These greetings combine the right measure of faith to share Easter joy with family and friends.
  • Big Easter Wishes: Oversized die-cut characters make an appearance for Easter- this time celebrating Easter in a BIG way just for kids.
  • Die-Cut Song Cards: Adorable die-cut Easter characters with fun and playful songs and sounds.
  • Child Card Presenter Collection: Kids can feel the Easter love with these AWESOMELY presented cards! Cards feature cute critters covered in fun textures with Easter messages tucked inside. After you remove the card, keep this little friend around to store favorite little treasures.
• Exclusively at Walmart this Easter season, Faithfully Funny greeting cards. These cards prove that humor can be funny by using universally familiar fables and biblical characters to make someone smile.
• Several unique cards address secret pals, Sunday school teachers, and holiday birthdays. Cards in foreign languages, Mahogany cards for African Americans, Hallmark Sinceramente cards for Hispanics, a card from the Easter Bunny, and cards from the cat or the dog complete the vast selection.
• Hallmark.com also offers Easter personalized paper greeting cards and postcards, which consumers can customize with their own messages and photos. In addition, Hallmark can address, stamp and mail the cards on any day the sender chooses.
• Hallmark.com provides a variety of Easter e-cards – from the Easter Bunny to hoops&yoyo™ – to share with friends and family.

2013 Easter Gift Features

• Telling her that she is worth celebrating is easier when you say it with a flower! Blooming Expressions™ for Easter, available in a variety of spring colors are showcased in a beautiful vase. Press a button and watch the blooms unfold to reveal a heartfelt sentiment inside. The vase features a ribbon and petals reveal a special message with a butterfly or heart inside. Hallmark Gold Crown stores will also feature musical designs. As the bud opens, beautiful music is synchronized with the opening.
• Back by popular demand, the Squawkin' Egg Droppin' Hen bobs up and down to a parody of "Whoomp! (There It Is)." As she bobs, Mama Hen squawks and lays eggs - and this year Mama's got a brand-new Easter hat and scarf. Also check out The Eggs-Cellent Mama Hen accompanying book.
• Thumpin' Thumper – A favorite for Easter baskets, Thumper, one of the most loved characters from Bambi. His adorable voice and foot-thumping fun brings lighthearted joy to the young and young-at-heart.
• Going Bonkers! Chicken – Easter fun is a Hallmark specialty-so bring it on with our chicken that pecks side-to-side to a fast-paced version of "The Chicken Dance." As the song speeds up so does his pecking-until he goes bonkers!
• Hallmark offers an everyday gift line, Storybook and Story Buddies, during the Easter season. Story Buddies are loveable plush characters that can respond with several different adorable phrases when they hear their stories read to them, when they listen to their read-along CDs or when you play with them on their app or on-line.
  • New just in time for Easter, our newest Interactive Story Buddy™ Mason™! Mason, a love-worn teddy bear who's been left behind by his previous owner, is rediscovered and loved again by his new friend, Jacob. Mason's curiosity leads him to explore different worlds and share his sweet perspective on life with friends he meets along the way. Bundle includes a story buddy, a storybook Mason's New Friends, a read-along audio CD and free access to digital story time on Hallmark.com. Two other storybooks are also available, Mason Visits the Zoo and Mason Goes to the Museum.
  • Already have an Abigail or Nugget Interactive Story Buddy? Check out these new books, Abigail and The Robin's Eggs and Nugget's Show and Tell.
• There's No Place Like Home And There's No One Like You and For Your Birthday The Most Special Day of All are the newest children's titles available in the Hallmark Recordable Storybook line.
• You Are My Sunshine, Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep: A Bedtime Prayer and The Little Engine That Could are among the children's titles available in the Hallmark Recordable Storybook line that are especially appropriate during the celebration of Easter.
• With Hallmark's newest line of interactive storybooks – Be a Part of the Story™ – kids have a chat with the main character. The Be a Part of the Story collection features exclusive technology that allows kids to have a conversation with storybook characters and keep the story moving. When highlighted lines are read aloud, the character chimes in with a special question or choice for a child to answer. Once the child answers, the character responds and the story continues! New titles for 2013 include:
  • Batman and the Funhouse Jewelry Heist
  • Sabrina Ballerina at the Grand Talent Show
• Hallmark Gift Books is proud to introduce four new titles – Bambi, Aladdin, Cinderella and Toy Story. Unparalleled artwork and best-loved tales to share and rediscover with generations to come.
• Also available by Hallmark Gift Books, two new Easter titles – The Easter Story and Easter Eggtivity Book.
• Disney Itty Bitty Plush – Four Disney characters – Ariel, Cinderella, Thumper and Bambi – with a contemporary styling make-over are available in great sizes to grab and play. They have a styling so unique that you will want to collect them all.
• Hallmark knows how to help kids deal with how they feel-our There for You Crew huggable plush characters and coordinating books offer stories for kids about love, confidence and individuality.
  • Zebra – Just Be You! Your heart beats true when you're busy being you.
  • Pig –You Are Loved You're loved a lot...no matter what
  • Fox – You Can Do It! Messing Up? Sure. Giving Up? No Way.
  • Lamb – You Are a Blessing (New for 2013)
• Hallmark Gold Crown stores offer a variety of Easter stuffed animals featuring several exclusive licensed characters. Easter Beagle Snoopy, does a little springy bob to an instrumental version of "Skip to My Lou" - but never drops his basket. Fwriends Forever Tweety, Floppy Bunny Snoopy and Floppy Egg Hunt Snoopy are also available.
• Hallmark Gold Crown stores are also a perfect stop for all things baptism/communion/confirmation, including photo frames, gift wrap, books, keepsake boxes, crosses, albums and plush animals.
• Hallmark Gold Crown stores also offer everything needed to create a unique Easter basket, including small toys, jewelry, stuffed animals, candies, books, Easter grass and other goodies.
• In addition to cards and gifts, Hallmark Gold Crown® stores also offer new designs in Easter gift wrap, paper partyware and stickers.

Holiday History

Easter is celebrated by Christians and is considered the most important religious holiday in the church year. Easter commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ three days after his death by crucifixion more than 2,000 years ago. Many people start the Easter day by attending sunrise church services.

For many people, the holiday traditionally represents new life, both in a religious sense and in the arrival of spring. The name Easter comes from the Teutonic goddess, Eostre or Eastre, the deity of both dawn and spring and the pagan symbol of fertility.

The egg has become closely associated with the holiday as a symbol of fertility and resurrection. Many cultures, including the Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, dyed eggs for their spring festivals. One of the most famous U.S. holiday customs associated with the Easter egg is the White House Easter Egg Roll. In 1878, President Rutherford B. Hayes opened the White House grounds for the event, although records exist of egg-rolling events as early as Abraham Lincoln’s administration.

Because of their association with fertility, rabbits also became symbols of Easter. The concept of the Easter rabbit is thought to have originated in Germany. One story describes a poor woman in Germany who enjoyed giving children Easter treats. One year, she hid brightly colored eggs in her garden. While searching for the eggs, the children spotted a hare hopping by. They thought the hare had left the eggs. Because rabbits are more common than hares in the United States, the Easter hare became the Easter rabbit and then the Easter Bunny. Long ago, American children built nests of leaves and sticks in their gardens or barns for the Easter Rabbit to fill with colored eggs.

In Stores

Available at Hallmark Gold Crown® stores nationwide and wherever Hallmark products are sold. Use the store locator on Hallmark.com to find the nearest Hallmark Gold Crown store.