“Decoding Middletown’s Easter Bunny: A Study in American Iconography”, 1980 (; backlinks):
“Christmas didn’t seem real down there”, Middletown people say after they have returned from a stay in Florida or in Southern California. In Middletown’s region, the Christmas festival marks with fair accuracy the onset of an indoor season when everyone’s dependence upon social networks for shelter, warmth, protection, and food is dramatically evident. The Christmas tree itself is brought inside. Meanwhile, nothing happens outside; the trees are leafless, the gardens are dormant, many of the birds have migrated, and few wild things are seen. Like people, domesticated animals depend on the social network for survival. Easter, the opposing festival, suitably marks both the end of winter and the relaxation of social dependence, as children and adults reemerge into the open air and the activities of nature are renewed.
…We are now in a position to see that the Easter bunny and Santa Claus stand for emphasis on the kinds of social relationship found in their respective contexts. Santa Claus is a paternal—even a grand-paternal-figure—old, experienced, prosperous, married—and he nurtures children. He comes in from outdoors to leave his presents, in keeping with the Christmas theme of protection from the elements. Note the common Christmas card pictures of people indoors cozily watching snowfall outdoors, or people wrapped in warm clothes skating or riding in a sleigh, or children in bed waiting for Santa. Even the presents are wrapped up. The Easter bunny, by contrast, has no name, no social relationships, and no home; he belongs exclusively to the outdoors. Even his sex is confused by his distribution of eggs. Moreover, the Easter bunny takes eggs produced and normally kept indoors and hides them outside in nature to be hunted for. Christmas is a festival in which each social relationship is emphasized and clarified, while at Easter all social relationships are blurred, just as in the religious iconography of Easter death is canceled by resurrection and adults are reborn by baptism—ie. the natural states of life and death are confounded (1961: 369–370). Once again, the religious and secular complexes are seen to be distinct but wonderfully mitered together. And once again, the religious complex confers a sense of worth and a hint of transcendent meaning upon the secular festival and its vulgar celebration of fine weather and new clothes.
…The 2 contrasting attitudes toward children are present also in the religious iconographies of these festivals…The Easter bunny is no moralist. He does not discriminate in his treatment of good children and bad children as Santa Claus does. His gifts are unconditional and more or less undirected. Indeed, the more we explore the list of his ambiguous attributes, the more inescapable the comparison with Santa Claus becomes. Above all, the Easter bunny is the total opposite of Santa Claus, and it is in this opposition that we may find the key to the symbolic meaning of both.