With Easter nearly here, American families religious and non-religious alike are preparing to celebrate. In a way, that’s apropos of its blended origins.

A minister once told me Easter is the most holy of all Christian holidays — the day Christians celebrate Jesus Christ’s rise to heaven, and a story nearly every American already knows very well. Like other major Christian feast days, church service and a big family meal are part of this tradition.

But how did we get from such a serious and holy focus to egg-laying bunnies?

Pagans.

Much like Christmas, Easter’s traditions blend in derivation from much older ones across Eurasia. Take for example, those colorful eggs: Ukrainian tales about the origins of egg-painting, called “pysanky” in celebration of spring’s rebirth, are mirrored in other ancient cultures such as Persia’s elaborate designs. Both celebrate the season’s new life and renewal.

According to most sources, the name "Easter" comes from Eostre, a Germanic and Norse goddess named for the dawn, or a similarly named Celtic goddess of fertility, sometimes called Ostara. Again, we see commonality of traditions crossing international borders and centuries. (Eostre and Ostara also gave us the English word estrogen.)

That emphasis on fertility also led to the Easter bunny. Rabbits were revered in some ancient cultures for their obvious fertility, but that’s not the only reason.

One version of a Celtic legend describes Eostre turning into a giant rabbit on the night of a full moon (note modern Easter is still timed with the moon’s phase). More often, the story is that Eostre turned a bird into a rabbit who retained the power to lay eggs — rainbow-colored ones, in fact.

Similar is the later story of German immigrants who brought their bright-egg-laying hare Osterhase (sounds like Ostara?) to America around the 1700s.

Now that sounds more familiar.

With all this emphasis on fertility you’ve probably guessed that Eostre’s festival was in the spring. Easter’s traditions explained, right?

Or not.

It seems some scholars are beginning to doubt most of this was true. Evidence of what really happened so many centuries ago in largely unrecorded history is too scant to prove one way or another.

Yes, there was certainly a goddess Eostre worshipped by some Norse, Anglo-Saxon and Celtic cultures. There was a festival for her, but the primary clue of timing lies in the name Eostermonath, “the time of opening” or something like that, which we’ve assumed connoted spring buds.

We really aren’t sure. Archeological evidence of Eostre's worship in the normally expected carvings and such are absent, thus far.

Most likely over the centuries, much like that old game of “telephone” where each person retells a short story resulting in a wildly different version by the time it reaches the last person in line, Easter’s traditional origins have become a blend of real, imagined and assumed.

That’s OK. Whatever we’re doing and whyever we do it, tradition is like man: An evolution of intent and symbolism to help us commemorate what’s important to us.

With that, whether you egg hunt, feast or simply feel gratitude for its gifts, Happy Easter.

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Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network. Email Sholeh@cdapress.com.