There are a few days a year that I'm reminded of the lack of organized religion in our house. Easter is one of them. First of all I generally have no idea when Easter is. I only realize it's coming when I start seeing pastel colors and bunny-things in the stores. This time when I realized it was coming Chuck and I decided that we were going to do the egg dying and hiding routine. Chuck went to the store Friday to get our (I mean the Easter Bunny's) supplies. I sent him for baskets and some treats.
I guess the economic downturn trumps our desire to adhere to the usual Easter festivities because Chuck decided that $10 was a lot to spend on a basket, so he came home with two pastel colored gift bags. "What the heck are we going to do with those?!" I said. "Jack can use them to collect the eggs" Chuck replied.
Okay. So yesterday I decided to introduce this whole subject to Jack. It went something like this:
Mommy: "Jackson, guess what tomorrow is?"
Jackson: "Huh?"
M: "Easter. And so today we need to dye some eggs."
J: "Why is dying?"
M: "Well that word has two meanings - one is when someone isn't living anymore and the other is when you want to color something." (Thinking that this conversation is not starting out well.)
J: "Huh?"
M: "Never mind. Anyway, we're going to dip eggs into some colors and then leave them for the Easter Bunny."
J: Blank stare.
M: "And then do know what happens? The Easter Bunny comes tonight and he hides those eggs for you."
J: "WHY?!"
M: "Umm, I guess because he's silly. So we need to leave them for him so he can hide them for you tonight so you can find them tomorrow."
J: "Why do we do that on Easter?"
M: "I don't really know. We just do."
Not a single mention of Jesus. First, because we have never talked about Him before. And second, because I really have no idea what He has to do with a gigantic bunny that sneaks into your house at night. Or art projects with eggs. Or hide and seek with eggs.
Well, we dyed them anyway and then put puffy paint on them. It was in the kit. And then we left them out. After the kids were in bed and we had had a few adult beverages, we set off to hide the eggs. Chuck had brought home six large plastic eggs that have Matchbox cars in them, and four smaller eggs that have Play-Doh in them. We put Kisses in with the cars and then hid all of them. I reached for the real eggs and started to hide them too, but Chuck looked really nervous. He thought Tugboat might eat them or they might break. Instead, we put them in a bowl and wrote a note from the Easter Bunny to Jackson.
This morning countless Americans got up, grabbed their Easter baskets, hunted for their dyed eggs and then got cleaned up and went to church. We got up, grabbed our gift bags and hunted for plastic car-holding eggs. Then we stayed in our pajamas, played on Twitter and put grease on our bird feeder to try to keep the squirrels off.
So here's my question (if you are still reading this - maybe you gave up already) - if we aren't willing to do the religious part of Easter, should we not do the fun part either? I guess we do Christmas, but that seems a bit easier to rationalize. We're around lots of family at that time and it gets talked about a lot more than Easter does. I feel a little like a fair-weather fan. When the boys get older I think we'll tell them what some people believe happened today, and that we celebrate Easter in a little different way (gift bags and Twitter and squirrel-tormenting) but we respect other people's beliefs on this day. But by those standards, shouldn't we also do something for Passover, or Kwanzaa? What does your family do?
As a side-note, I encourage all of you to listen to David Sedaris' story about the Easter Bunny. It's one of the funniest things I've ever heard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5apZmwR9UI
6 comments:
haha, do you think Jackson thinks you guys are crazy making this stuff up? Jackson, tomorrow, a cowboy will appear while you are napping, we need to cook some chili for him today so he leaves us something fun, if we don't he leaves us a barrel of hay!
Honestly for me holidays are just about being around the people you love and celebrating THAT. Feeling lucky and happy for what we have and the traditions that help us feel connected.
But its an interesting point that we don't do this on every holiday... flag day here we come!
I found this post fascinating and would love to have a conversation about it.
The eggs on Easter represent the resurrection of Jesus and new life through him. If you would like to come to a service or to next year's Easter service, let me know.
I guess I don't really understand why you'd celebrate Easter without at least discussing why it's a holiday?
Thanks for your comment Lis. The egg reference makes sense - still a little lost on the dying them, hiding them and the Easter Bunny.
And you hit my point on the nose - why DO we (I use"we" here on purpose, as I know we're not the only family who does this) play along if we don't fully adhere to the religious points represented? I don't really know, to be honest. It was something fun to do with Jack, but Chuck and I aren't really wanting to "go there" with him yet. As I said, when he's older I want to tell him about lots of different beliefs and let him pick and choose what makes sense for him and his own spirituality. At this age he just takes things in as facts though, so I don't think he's ready for that.
Hi Jamie-
We celebrate Passover in our house as we are raising Hallyson jewish. That is a holiday that celebrates the freedom of the jewish people in slavery to Pharoh.
While it was a non-issue this year, we will have to discuss with Hally why her cousins get easter eggs, get to do an easter egg hunt, get presents from santa when she is left eating matzah. This year she ate and slept through all the craziness. Any advice on that topic is appreciated.....
Love, Florie
hey pookie,
you know that I love that David Sedaris story. a while back I actually asked my French host sister what the deal with the bells was. She said that she had no idea but looked it up for me. Here is what she told me- just bear in mind that I am translating this from French...
Since the 7th century the Church has forbidden the ringing of bells starting on the Thursday before Easter until Easter Sunday (he was killed on Thursday and three days later he rose again) so out of mourning we don't ring bells during those days. In fact, during those days all the bells of France go to Italy to see the Pope to be blessed. Then they come back ringing on Sunday morning to celebrate the joy of the resurrection of Christ. And then the bells hide the Easter eggs in gardens for kids to find.
The Easter bunny actually started as a pagan tradition. The rabbit or hare is the animal associated with the goddess Astre that the saxons honored in spring. She was the goddess of fertility. She even gave her name to Easter (astre = easter, close enough.)
The rabbit is a symbol of fecundity, having 4 to 8 litters a year. Also symbolizes abundance, proliferation, life and renewal. People have given the rabbit a Christian significance: Christ is sometimes symbolized as a rabbit with large open ears for listening to the divine parole. (I've never personally seen him symbolized like that but maybe in France?)
It was in Germany and Alsace that they associated for the first time the Easter bunny with the Easter eggs for celebrating springtime. The kids would make a nest out of leaves, moss and herbs and put it in the garden with the hope that during the night the rabbit would hide multi colored eggs. (still doesn't explain why the eggs are multi colored. maybe to be able to find them easier?)
King Louis XIV personally distributed eggs painted with gold leaf to his courtesans.
It wasn't until the 18th century in France that they decided to empty the eggs and refill them with chocolate. And then they realized that it would just be easier to make an egg out of chocolate.
But I say that if you want to celebrate and hide some eggs, you go right ahead. You could make it a celebration of the goddess Astre to celebrate spring instead of it being a Christian thing.
Started to leave a comment and realized it was getting ridiculously long. Turned it into a post on my own blog, because I am longwinded like that. Read it here if you're interested: http://catnamedpig.com/2009/04/14/religious-holidays-without-the-religion/
How, and what, to celebrate is something Matt and I have discussed quite a bit. So far, I think we've been happy with the compromises we've worked out. We're always interested in hearing what others think and what other couples and families come up with. I think this is a very interesting topic. Would love to hear more either right here or at catnamedpig.
Post a Comment