I have no idea where we ever got this idea, but as children my brothers and I expected Easter morning to bring not only baskets with plastic grass, chocolate rabbits, and marshmallow peeps (ugh - those things are NASTY) in them - but real presents to boot. Instead of celebrating the supposed resurection of Jesus we were scheming to increase our material wealth. My parents, bless their hearts, never failed to get us a badminton set. Every year, as regular as clockwork, my brothers and I would bat every shuttlecock on the roof, or the dog would eat them, or we’d break the rackets in the process of beating the crap out of each other. So much for the badminton set, and yet my parents persisted. The end result is that to me, Easter will forever be the holiday associated with lost shuttlecocks and broken raquets.
How 'bout you? What’s your Easter tradition?
PS Sunrise service? You must be out of your damn mind.
I was just commenting the other day that I don’t know how kids don’t figure out the Easter Bunny thing earlier. Unlike Santa Claus, there’s no attempt whatsoever to hide it. There’s a bunch of candy in the stores, in plain view, exactly like the candy you get from the E.B. For Christmas, you can claim those toys and things are there as part of gifts for others, but with Easter, the stuff supposedly ONLY comes from this Bunny.
Okay, not really. In fact I think it’s happened only three or four times in my life, but that’s enough to be annoying. It’s my birthday this year, for example. I always hated it because my parents would give me an Easter basket and figure they were off the hook as far as presents went. Buh!
Here Comes Peter Cottontail, Hopping Down the Bunny Trail…
HIPPITY HOPPITY EASTER’S ON ITS WAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY!!!
Well, now my Mom gets me cosmetics or something for my house or something.
She used to get me-and I mean this happened EVERY SINGLE FREAKIN YEAR- a bigass white chocolate bunny among the other goodies in my basket. Somehow she decided that I liked the white chocolate ones, and my sister liked the regular chocolate ones. You know, the luscious ones that melt all over your paws and Easter dress, those creamy smoooooth chocolaty blissful things? Yeah. Those. My sister got one every year, while I was stuck with my shite chocolate-[WHOA-guess I’m gonna leave that Freudian typo in there! I mean WHITE chocolate piece of bland, hardened yogurt-tasting stuff. Sis wouldnt share, but she sure would let me watch as she slowly, torturously devoured the dark, silky goodness.
i think I said something once or twice, but Mom never got the hint. Finally it didnt seem worth it.
In my family, it was a rite of passage, an Episcopalian Bat/r Mitzvah for the one who was becoming an adult, the one who would “get to be the bunny.” I remember the white gloves, the oversized white painters jumpsuit --I felt like Elvis and vaguely remember doing an impression, waggling hips and wailing “you ain’t nothin but a hound dog…” with the big paper maché head whacking my cheeks and lolling on my shoulders. The whiskers were straw, the tail was scraggly cotton, and the right hand glove had a hole just above the wrist. I remember hopping out in the Arizona sun, doing my damndest to be a convincing bunny; part of the tradition is that the children are told: “the bunny’s coming to hide the eggs, y’all come inside and stay away from the windows so he doesn’t know you know,” and of course, the kids peek. Then the kids are let out for a meet and greet with the bunny before the egg hunt truly begins (so why the earlier “secrecy?” HeckifIknow.) So all was well for maybe the first few minutes, I hand out special treats to each kid, and I’m shaking hands when one spots the skin through the glove hole and says, “there’s a PERSON under there!” The kids begin to crowd around, and the bunny turns cotton tail and flees into a nearby arroyo (still hopping convincingly if I may say so myself). I hunkered down among the rattlers and real bunnies for maybe fifteen minutes before I slunk back, my foot and a half long ears wilted by the incredible heat. Later, it seemed absurd to me that they would “discover” the fraud by proof of sight of flesh through a glove, I mean, my whiskers were STRAW, fer crying out loud.
That was our family Easter ritual, the biggest one anyway, although the one I prefer was the one where you wake up and follow the winding jelly-bean trail from your bedside to your basket. I never got the Easter basket tradition mixed up with the Christmas stockings because I only got one toothbrush for Easter, and no cans of soup–in my family, it’s not a proper Christmas stocking if there isn’t a can of Chicken and Stars in there.
BTW, I hate peeps too, but people always act as if you’ve just anally violated their mother if you turn one down. Yech.
Hey! I love Peeps! The best thing they ever did was make Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Valentine’s Day Peeps so’s I don’t hafta wait until Easter to eat them!
For Easter, I think we colored eggs and hid them. And ate Peeps. That’s about it.
got a big old choclate rabbit when i must have been about 5 or 6. started to eat it, but had to get dragged off to church. when we got back, the damn dog had eaten it!
teenage years, traditionally skied that day (and damn near all other days with snow!) at heavenly valley…
…except in 1984, when easter fell on april 15th (i remember, cause it was my sisters birthday) and i was roaming around south america. was in la paz, bolivia, and heard that there was a “ski resort” outside of town in the mountains. hum…i thought, i need to do this! turns out it was at over 10,000 meters and was listed as the highest elevation permanently established “resort” (hardly! had a run-down lodge and a chevy 350 powered cable running up the slope). well, i grabbed what skis were available (too short and had an edge delam-ing) and tore that place up! the 20 or 30 “locals” were in awe, and stood with jaws agape! after about 10-12 runs, i felt kinda tired and decided to sit in the back of the cab for a few minutes. woke up 3 hours later in la paz. that kind of altitude does some serious weird stuff to ya…
oh, yeah, almost fell into a huge, unmarked cravase, but leaped over it at the last second and managed a stylin’ mule-kick to boot!
When I was three or four, I decided that Easter was my favorite stuffed animal’s birthday, so for years afterward my parents had to dye an extra egg for Carol Kangaroo. (Yes, I eventually figured out that Easter didn’t always fall on the same day – this didn’t bother me or Carol in the slightest.)
My brother and I would always find one candy egg in our shoes (the rest were hidden around the living room). I have a vague idea that this tradition dated back to the childhood of one of my parents, but I don’t know which.
My grandfather always had to have a green egg because he was Irish – I think we must have confused Easter with St. Patrick’s day at some point.
my mum is one of those strict types. holy days are very strictly holy. not to be defiled with peeps. sooo, the bunny arrives on the vernal equinox. a basket of spring things on march 20th. if candy is one of those lenten no-no’s then the basket will have plants, flowers, or perhaps some spring type clothing.
I recall trading all my jelly beans, which I didn’t like at all, to my brothers for malted milk eggs which were much tastier.
Also, every year my grandmother would give my brothers these big, gorgeous, solid milk chocolate bunnies. Me, I always got an ostrich-sized, chocolate-coated coconut cream egg with pastel sugar flowers on top. One year it was a fruit and nut egg instead. Yuck. I know she gave me these as special gifts because I was the only girl for several years but… rats. I really wanted one of those rabbits. I never told her of course because that would be rude.
And my weasel brothers would never trade for the coconut cream egg. :mad:
