It's an old story that still makes me laugh.

A woman making pot roast for dinner carefully slices off the meat on each end before placing it in the roasting pan and then the oven. But this time, her daughter asks why she cuts off the ends.

"I don't know," the woman replied. "That is what my mother did when cooking pot roast."

That evening, the woman called her own mother to find out why she always cut off the ends of the pot roast. To her surprise, her mother had a ready answer.

"Oh! That's because my roasting pan was so small that the pot roast would never fit in it, so I cut off the ends."

How many of our family's traditions are based not on romantic Norman Rockwell stories but on happening to own a small roasting pan? With Easter approaching, I can't help but think about some of our family traditions, like blowing out raw eggs. As a child, I remember fondly when my mom, my sister, and I would poke holes in the ends of raw eggs with a straight pin. Then standing over a bowl, we would blow out the contents so that we could dye the remaining hollow shell. I do the same with my children. But now I am beginning to question this tradition.

For one, blown eggs are apparently as out of fashion as live Christmas trees. We are the only family I know who still does this. Some color hard boiled eggs, but most buy colorful plastic eggs to hide. The other problem is that these eggs last forever. My children are only 9 and 6, and I already have dozens of colored eggs stored in my garage. However, a student recently told me her family fills the blown eggs with confetti or powder. When one of these eggs is found, it is immediately cracked on someone's head. That would quickly reduce our egg collection, but perhaps most disturbing is what to do with the blown out yolk and egg whites. I clearly recall my mom cooking up scrambled eggs after the decorating. But as I watch my slobbering children blow that gunk out, all I can do is dump it down the drain.

Why do we decorate eggs anyway? And, what about the bunny? How did these traditions begin? Many people might be surprised that these are not merely fabrications of a brilliant marketing team on Madison Avenue. In fact, historians trace the name Easter to an ancient Saxon Goddess of Spring, Eostre (or Eastre). Every year, the pagans held a festival in her honor, celebrating the end of winter and the beginning of spring. It is not surprising that these two celebrations of renewal and rebirth, the Christian Easter and the pagan festival, both occurred in the beginning of spring, the time of nature's rebirth. Christians hoped to convert the pagans, but the pagans did not want to give up their festivals, so the Christians gradually turned these celebrations into Christian celebrations.

The egg has long been a symbol of fertility and new life across all cultures in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Long before Jesus, people around the world were celebrating the arrival of spring with eggs, such as the Persians, who dyed eggs and gave them to friends as a symbol of renewed life. This symbol naturally became associated with the celebration of the renewed life of mankind through the resurrection of Christ.

While the Easter Bunny officially dates back to Germany in the 1500s, the rabbit has also been an important symbol of fertility and abundant new life since before the birth of Jesus. In fact, the earthly symbol of Eostre was the rabbit. However, we have the Pennsylvania Dutch to thank for bringing the modern Easter Bunny to the United States.

Easter is the true multicultural holiday, with a little bit for and from people all over the world. And we're a part of this chain when our families continue to pass down our own traditions.

So this year, when you decorate those eggs, whether boiled, hollow or filled with confetti, you are connecting your children to centuries of the celebration of life.