Every year, little tykes wake up on Easter morning to carefully laid baskets full of plastic eggs, jelly beans, marshmallows, fluffy stuffed bunnies and new church clothes and exclaim, “The Easter bunny came!”

The exact origins of the Easter bunny are a mystery, but there is a clue to how they came to American tradition.

Its first arrival in America was in the 1700s when German immigrants settled in Pennsylvania with their tradition of an egg-laying hare called “Osterhase.”

Children would make nests for this creature to lay its brightly colored eggs. The custom soon spread across the states.

– Emily Long, Jones PR

America’s best known Easter Egg Roll was almost stomped out by Congress in 1877. How?

Before 1877, the roll took place on the Capitol Hill grounds. But a rowdy roll in 1876 took a tremendous toll on the grounds and Congress decided to put a stop to the tradition. It passed a law forbidding the grounds from being “used as a children’s playground” due to a lower landscaping budget.

President Hayes intervened the following year when he opened the White House grounds for what has turned into the largest annual event hosted at the White House.

What’s your Easter tradition?

– Emily Long, Jones PR