Where do Easter eggs come from? The answer for children, of course, is that the Easter Bunny lays them. But the history of decorating eggs on Easter is an interesting question for adults, too.
Of course, it's not difficult to understand how Easter got associated with eggs. Easter is a Christian holiday celebrating Jesus' resurrection, and eggs are where new life is born from. On a less symbolic and more practical level, because eating animal products was historically banned during the Lenten fast preceding Easter, Christians ended up with a lot more eggs than they knew what to do with when Lent was over.
Where the specific tradition of coloring eggs came from is more mysterious. The Middle East, where Christianity itself was born, is not a bad place to look. The Christian communities there, such as Assyrians, are known to have been dyeing their Easter eggs for centuries. In the Orthodox Christian tradition, eggs are painted red to symbolize Jesus' blood shed on the cross.
