Most faiths have holy days, also known as holidays. My faith, which is Christianity, has many, but the two most familiar are Christmas and Easter.

The season of Christmas seems to be more pronounced and longer. Also, it seems to have more overall participation. We see Christmas decorations in just about every public place. In addition, the secular songs of Christmas, like Jingle Bells and White Christmas, are much more prevalent than the few secular songs of Easter.

But, the similarities are there. For Christmas, there is a season of anticipation known as Advent. In the church, we begin a month before Christmas Day and accent each Sunday, with the purpose of celebrating the climax of the season on Christmas Day.

With Easter, the season of anticipation is known as Lent. With Advent, there is a joyous anticipation, but with Lent, there is a more solemn feeling. Christians use the season of Lent to reflect upon the reason that we need a Savior; that is for the forgiveness of sin.

Both holidays are centered on our Savior. Christmas celebrates His birth and therein lies the reason for its brighter nature. For Easter, although the Sunday of Easter is a day of victory and joy, its season is more somber as it includes the betrayal, rejection, denial, and crucifixion. Those are dark moments in the life of our Lord.

Easter doesn’t have many secular songs, but the hymns of Christmas and Easter are plentiful and well-known. If Joy to the World is a bright and standard hymn for Christmas, its Easter counter is probably He Lives. One doesn’t have to attend many church services during these two holiday seasons to hear those two songs.

Silent Night might be the best known song in the world and there may not be a similar song of the Easter season, but In the Garden is mighty popular and sung often during the year and, particularly, the Easter holidays.

Most churches will have their appropriately decorated Christmas trees and other types of greenery in their sanctuaries. How about churches during Easter? Many churches have palm branches during Palm Sunday and, of course, there will be millions of Easter lilies decorating the sanctuaries this Sunday.

There are also the colors of both seasons and the colors are different as the seasons are. For instance, the birthday season of Christ is decorated brightly with reds, whites, and greens. Easter is just as colorful, but the colors are more subtle. More pastel.

Nowhere are the colors of Easter more prevalent than in the Easter eggs our children hunt. They’re beautiful, but not so bright. They’re also different. One hardly sees a yellow Christmas decoration, but a yellow Easter egg is not surprising. That same goes for lavender, light green, and pink. Easter is very colorful, just like the spring azaleas and amaryllis’, but the colors are more subdued than the bright colors of Christmas.

Finally, aside from the center of the season, the Lord Jesus Christ, a similarity that I really enjoy is the smiles on the faces of children, whether they are anticipating Christmas Day or awaiting the egg hunt.

This past Sunday, we had an early Easter egg hunt and it was after our traditional Fourth Sunday lunch. As soon as the children found out that we were going to hunt Easter eggs after lunch, lunch was forgotten.

Instead there was the one question on every child’s mind. “When are we going to hunt the eggs?” The joy on the faces of innocent children. That’s the one similarity of both holidays that I like. Happy Easter, friends!