When is Easter 2023, and when are the school holidays
How to celebrate the Christian festival – and when you can eat your weight in chocolate bunnies
Easter is the most important date in the Christian calendar, and it’s also a major secular holiday, too.
For Christians, Easter is the day of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
It also marks a four-day bank holiday weekend, giving the opportunity to get away, eat your body weight in chocolate bunnies, and to plan a fun family day out.
Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday are the main bank holidays, and they’re sandwiched between Good Friday and Easter Monday.
As a result of these holidays, many people are now wondering when Easter 2023 will fall. Here’s everything you need to know, as well as when the school holidays will fall.
When is Easter 2023?
In 2023, Easter Sunday falls on April 9, 2023, just over a week earlier than in 2022, when it fell on April 17.
Unlike in 2022, this year, Easter is set to arrive near the end of the school holidays, and next year’s celebrations are set to come midway through the break.
As a result, Good Friday will be on Friday, April 7, marking a national bank holiday in the United Kingdom.
Easter Monday is set to be on Monday, April 10, which will complete a four-day weekend for those in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
In Scotland, Easter isn’t a nationwide bank holiday, although various councils do claim it as one.
It means that Good Friday will be on Friday, April 7, marking a bank holiday across the UK.
When are the school holidays?
For most schools, the Easter Holidays in 2023 will fall on Friday, March 29 – Friday, April 12 (Easter weekend 29 March – April 1).
Why does Easter change every year?
Each year, Easter moves its date, meaning that it’s moveable – unlike Christmas, for example.
Easter’s date depends on the lunar cycle, as well as the timing of the Jewish festival of Passover, which is rooted in the Biblical account of Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection.
The Last Supper, which took place the night before Jesus was crucified, was on Passover.
The following day, Jesus was crucified, and buried the day after that, before rising again on the third day, which is when Easter Sunday now falls.
As a result of this, Easter is connected to Passover, which is in turn connected to the first full moon after the spring equinox – being held on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox.
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