South Portland, Maine ? The Easter Bunny is making tracks on Santa Claus’ turf, using one of the biggest Christian holidays as an opportunity to lure little tykes and their parents to the mall.

A majority of malls that hire a Santa for December are now hiring a bunny for at least two weeks before Easter, and there’s a growing expectation among children who visit the bunny that he’ll leave a toy along with candy in their Easter basket.

“We are seeing a lot of pressure through marketing to begin to expect a level of present-giving that (kids) get at Christmas,” said Chris Byrne, a New York toy consultant and editor of The Toy Report.

Some see it as the crass commercialization of a day set aside to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But for many parents, it’s just springtime fun for their children.

Amber Carr’s 4-year-old daughter Anastasia even wrote a letter to the Easter Bunny asking for gifts and treats.

On Easter Sunday, she will get a basket and a present, but she won’t be going to church.

“It’s too complicated,” said Carr, of Randolph. She and her husband were raised with different religious backgrounds and decided not to participate in either as adults, she said.

Dr. Daniel Akin, dean of theology at the Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Ky., sees the arrival of the mall bunny as just one more example of the commercial exploitation of Christianity.

“When Easter is reduced to nothing more than a bunny, Easter eggs and chocolate, we have reached a tragic day, because that is not what Easter was about to begin with and it’s not what it should be about today,” he said.

But the Rev. Eric Shafer, director of the Evangelican Lutheran Church in America, says the Easter Bunny is a golden opportunity to spread the Christian word, like a good ad campaign.

“Many churches have Easter egg hunts,” he said. “The real question is, do you complain what secular society has done with religious symbols or do you use it as an opportunity. I say the latter.”

According to retailers, Easter has become the second-biggest toy-giving holiday after Christmas.

The big bunny is a way for malls to lure customers, said Bonnie Fluck, spokeswoman for Cherry Hill Photo Enterprises in New Jersey, which provides Santas and bunnies for more than 230 malls across the country.

“It’s not really the same draw as Santa,” she admits.

Nonetheless, more parents seem to be making special trips to shopping centers to line up with their toddlers hoping for a photo with the white-tailed, pink-eared bunny.