Easter
 

What do you do with your kids on Easter? More specifically, how far do you feel obligated to go with the festivities?

We happen to have my stepkids on Easter this year for the first time ever. (It usually falls on the second weekend of the month, but this year it's technically the "first weekend" because April 1st was part of the "fifth weekend" in March. ANYWAY...) When I was a kid, we did none of the typical Easter things--no eggs, no baskets, nothing. We went out to a fancy brunch with some family friends, that was our tradition. My husband's family did this very involved thing where instead of an egg hunt their mother hid little rhyming clues around the house that would each lead to the next clue, ultimately leading to their Easter baskets that had plastics-eggs-with-candy and small toys.

He would in theory like to continue his mother's tradition, but things are just so incredibly crazy around here right now--I mentioned in a couple other threads that we just sold our house, and we now have about 2 weeks to find our own new house, buy it, finish packing and move. Hell, we might even be out looking at houses on Easter Sunday. Oh, and my husband screwed up his shoulder pretty badly and is wearing a sling and can't lift the baby at all for who knows how long. So I just don't know if I have it in me to write cutesy poems this week (and let's not fool ourselves, despite it being his family's tradition he's so busy with work right now that I'll have to do it or it won't get done.) On the other hand, in a lot of ways it would be easier than physically hiding eggs outside. But my dad's still having his yearly fancy brunch, and I'd rather just go to that and be done with it, since we'll have to eat that day anyway. But does that make me a bad parent? Mr. Clodfobble says I was denied my childhood because of my lack of Easter egg hunts, among other things.

I have no children and do not celebrate the death of crucified god.

But I eat the chocolate bunnies anyway. And jellybeans. I lurves the jellybeans. They are at their ripest now.

Easter and Christmas are not holidays for church musicians. (Not if you're talking about Christian churches, anyway.) From Friday to Sunday there will be five services that at least one member of the Dallas clan is performing in.

Therefore Easter "dinner" is likely to be peanut butter & jelly sandwiches. Maybe Chef Boyardee Ravioli if we're feeling ambitious.

Easter baskets will, according to family tradition, be filled with items purchased at about 11PM Saturday night at a local 24-hour chain pharmacy. Our church sponsors a neighborhood Easter egg hunt on Saturday which will be another source of candy for the kids (not to mention the grownups). Fortunately we don't have to do anything for that one except show up.

We did a pretty small indoor candy hunt when I was a kid. Pete was raised a Fundementalist Unitarian though so in respect for her upbringing, we do a fairly involved circus of clues to find the Easter baskets. Outside of that we have an extended family dinner featuring pork products to emphasize our new arrangement with God.

What the heck is a Fundamentalist Unitarian? (If you had asked me, I would have said it was an oxymoron.)

It was supposed to be an amusing oxymoron...:( *sigh* I failed to amuse once more.

Hey, I feel your pain.. I've done that before many times. :comfort: It was a great line, though I wouldn't be surprised if there actually is such a thing.

My Easter plans are: Watch the Sopranos!

When I was a kid, eggs and candy were hidden around the house. My mom did the treasure hunt thing for a few birthdays, though.

I thought it was hilarious.

Excellent, now I can concentrate on my writing and bazeball.

Easter was very different in the UK (although like Halloween it is acquiring an American flavour now). We celebrated it seriously, being Catholic, but our celebration was even further from the "chocolates and bunnies and egg hunts" than your family's was.

My Dad did set up a treasure hunt for us one year - clues for my sister & I to find our one egg, and Dad and I repeated it later for my younger brother, but I think that was coincidental (he would sometimes set up fun & games for no reason whatsoever).

On a usual Easter Sunday we would come downstairs and find our egg at our breakfast plate. (Typical British Easter eggs - chocolate eggs with a bag of sweets inside & sometimes a mug or an eggcup or a toy in the box too). Very occasionally we would be allowed to open it and eat some of the contents before Mass. But the contents are small beer compared to the egg anyway.

Then Mass, really really early so we would get a seat - Easter was always packed out. Before I was 12 my Grandparents lived in London so they would stay with us, as would Grandad's sister (Fatty Alice). After that they moved to Aylesbury - opposite the church in fact - so we would go to their place afterwards. Possibly another egg, possibly some money or a toy. Then all home to ours for the best part of the day - extra special Sunday roast. It was a really joyful occasion despite not having the same haul as Christmas. I loved Easter.

Then the oldies would fall asleep in front of whatever film was on as the Easter blockbuster, and someone would take us out for a walk.

It was special - a proper Christian celebration. A high day. A Holy day. I do miss it in a way.

Anyway, back to you.
I say, have a proper sit-down chat with your other half re this. I accept that he says you were deprived in a tongue-in-cheek way, but the truth is just because something is the cultural norm it doesn't mean that you should follow it. The children I know veer between anarchy and arch-conservatism. Which ever mode they're in at the time, some variation in the routine is good for them.

If he is not willing to put the work in to keep everything identical to what their mother provides then I think he should accept your family's way of doing things. Even if you do the fancy brunch and they hate it, stick to it and I bet in years to come they include it as family tradition.

Not sure if I was clear--the clue-thing is from my husband's mother, not the kids' mother. We have no idea what she does every year (and if we did he'd surely want to avoid it simply for that reason alone anyway.) I know they wouldn't hate the brunch, I just wouldn't want them to be sad if they didn't have some sort of typical egg-hunt.

I was all prepared to say that the "years to come" would be a moot point since it's rare for us to have them on Easter, but I looked up just how the date of Easter is determined and it turns out the last three years have been a bit of a fluke, and we will actually have them more often than not in the years to come. Huh. That sort of motivates me more to do something special with it, if I'll be setting up a tradition my stepkids will enjoy rather than just putting in a placeholder for this year.

We used to have a Christmas-style gathering, complete with ham. I got an Easter basket with yellow grass, lots of Peeps and Cadbury creme eggs and at at least one solid white chocolate bunny. And the Easter Bunny had to have 7-Up left for him...nothing else would do.

These days, April and I go over to her mom's house for a small feast with the immediate family. I don't know what my parents do...I think they bbq.

Clod, I'd have a serious heart-to-heart with the hubby. I would try to do something nice for the kids, but within reason. Or, perhaps you could have the kids 2 weeks in a row down the line, and let them stay with their mom for Easter.

Clodfobble, if you send me a list of hiding places, I'd be happy to make up rhyming clues fo them. It's one of my few hidden talents ;)

I never really did anything special for East when I was a kid older than six. Before that we did the Easter egg hunt but I stopped wanting to do that pretty early on.

This year I think I'm going to be the only one in the hall not going home so I'm not going to be doing anything.

Ha! I was getting ready to type out how we did this very thing. In fact our kids participated in this thing right up till last year when my youngest was 14. They still played along because the gifts got bigger and more expensive every year, esp the cash from granny.

Clodfobble, give 'em candy for breakfast and they won't give a shit about anything swirling around them. Househunting, packing, grandpa's brunch....nothing.

As a kid, my parents (i.e., my mother) hid candy eggs all over the house and yard. But who needs all that candy?

When my own kids were small I usually got them a "basket" with some candy, some little toys, and some practical things. I moved away from Easter "baskets" per se, because I found they were awkward to keep around, so I usually looked for some practical container. Clothes and shoes were also popular gifts, shoes especially. Can you take the kids all to Payless or something? Kids always need shoes.

I went bunny shopping today for the little girl grandkids. Poor crop this year, though. I think I will cook/take breakfast over to my daughters' house, then we're all going to the zoo.

:) I'll be watching Six Feet Under myself.

I got it, and I laughed until I stopped.

re: bad parent, is clodfobble? A: No. You are not! (lazy, perhaps. bad? no.)
(jesting about the laziness)

re: Your stolen childhood. I think you are still young enough (you're like 16, as I recall, so the statue of limitations is probably not up. You should sue your parents for damages and with the big reward money you can hire someone to write clues for you.

okay, jesting again.

Seriously though, some idears:

1. Where is your MIL? can you shanghai her into helping with the clues,etc. since she undoubtedly is a Shihan in this sort of thing.
2. Can you do a "lite" version in light of your impending move? Can the boxes be incorporated in the whole hunt?
3. Can you badger mr. Clodfobble into "cowboying up" with references to how your previous boyfriend lifted a volkswagen off a kitten with a broken elbow? Guys love it when their manliness is challenged.
4. Sorry, jesting up there.
5. What about putting mr. Shoulder guy in charge of writing the rhymes, the painkillers should make the creative process a breeze.
6. Fake violently throwing up and come out of the bathroom looking pretty messed up and while clutching your gut, start to speak then puff up your cheeks and run back in for another prolonged flushing, retching bout, come back out and say "As I was starting to say, I'll be happy to uuugggh, work on the uuuughgg egg hunt thing.. Ugghhh can you make me a cup of tea, I'll be right back." Rushg back into the bathroom and lie on the floor pressing your face against the cool tile floor, telling him you like it better down there and you'll be 'right as rain' in a few minutes.
7. Alternitivley, there is always telling the truth.

You're a funny man, foot. Funny indeed. :)

There definitely have been some general improvements in the last day: Mr. Clod reported much less pain in his shoulder this morning, and we put an offer on a house last night that we feel pretty certain they'll take without hesitation. So since we're not going out looking at houses again today, I have pretty much the whole day to go get some miscellaneous candy and plastic eggs from the grocery store, and I've decided that clue haikus will suffice, at least for this year. :) (But I may still take you up on your poem-writing skills in subsequent years monster, so you'd better consider yourself a permanent dwellar.)

Oh, and telling the truth is for pansies, foot, everyone knows that!

Clodfobble, I thought you were a guy (because sounds like a guy's name). Damn these new-fangly internet nicknames!

Happy Spring to all, btw!

A) Thanks.
B) Holy mackerel. What? You sold your house and have to be out in two weeks and you don't already have a place lined up? day um.
C) A gal after my own heart...

Easter schmeaster, since when does a Grandmother need a holiday to shop for the grandchildren?
Grandpa may need a reason, but grandma only needs an opportunity.

Let's see: rabbits, eggs, celebrations of fertility... Easter is about Jesus?

Jesus, Kits. Don't you know anything? Easter is when Jesus comes out of the cave and if he sees his shadow there will be six more weeks of winter. Duh.



:right:

Easter is celebrating Saint Peter Rabbit.
(thanks to South Park)

No no, we have to be out of the old place by May 21st. The "two weeks" I mentioned was a realistic deadline for when we had to literally find a house we wanted, then all time after that will be spent on inspections, contracts, closing, and getting it painted and whatnot in time for us to move in. So right now we're actually a good week and a half ahead of schedule, no worries.

phew

Don't believe the shit on South Park. The Easter Bunny is Peter Cottontail.
Has nothing to do with Peter Rabbit.... or Bre'r Rabbit.... or any other damn rabbit.

Column - Kinder to our Christians
By Andrew Bolt
Friday, April 06, 2007 at 01:45am


MOCKING Christ has not, in years, seemed this childish – even cowardly. And no, I’m not a Christian.

Of course, this being Easter, Christianity’s most holy festival, we’ve seen some of the usual tributes of disrespect from the cultural elite.

While the ABC refused to show the Danish cartoons of Mohammed, for fear of God knows what mayhem, it had no such fear this week of mocking Jesus, whose crucifixion is remembered today.

Its Triple J station held “Jesus, you’ve got talent!” – a talent quest for singing toga wearers and the like, (and did so without the protection of one policeman).

Chicago’s School of Art Institute, meanwhile, displayed an art work showing Christ resurrected as Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama, son of a Muslim-born Kenyan.

And New York’s Lab Gallery unveiled a life-sized Jesus made of chocolate, anatomically accurate right down to his bared penis.

I know, it’s tame stuff given what we’ve seen before.

Who can forget Piss Christ, the crucifix plopped in a jar of urine at the National Gallery of Victoria?

Or the Chris Ofili picture of the Virgin Mary, decorated with cow dung, which the National Gallery of Australia tried to bring in?

Or the ABC’s Christmas special of 1999 – a comparison of the Sistine Chapel’s religious frescoes with the paintings made by hip British artists Gilbert and George of their semen, faeces, spit and blood?

But all these are just accent points of an elite culture that slurs Christians so naturally that The Age blithely ran opinion pieces last month with yet more priest-baiting lines, such as these:

"Being Catholic, the ‘70s meant rock masses, liturgical dancing and clapping to Rock My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham until you lost all will to live. When you heard the word `priest’ you didn’t immediately think `child molester’ – you thought of that guy with sideburns and shocking breath who played the guitar badly and wanted to be `down with the youth’ . . .

“(W)e’d watch Mass for You at Home: just as soul-destroying and mind-numbing as the real thing, but it took half the time and you didn’t have to shake hands with that weird guy with the eczema.”

Ask any Christian politician how hard it is now, given the Gulf Stream of anti-Christian bigotry, to discuss moral issues in the media.

Their opinions will be dismissed as the he-would-say-that prattlings of a Vatican parrot or of a nice-but zealot.

Ask Tony Abbott, the Health Minister and a Catholic, whose reasoned arguments on an abortion pill were sniggered away by a slogan on a gloating Greens senator’s T-shirt: “Get your rosaries off my ovaries.”

YET it seems the cheap-shot sneers of intolerant atheists are fewer this year. More muted. And the squawks we still hear seem more contemptible.

It would be no wonder. I wouldn’t be alone in thinking each time an artist or commentator insults Christians: friend, if you’re so brave, say that about Islam.

Show us your chocolate Mohammeds. Show us your Korans dipped in urine.

Where is the singer who will rip up a Koran as Marilyn Manson ripped up a Bible? Or will on television tear up a picture of Islam’s most honoured preacher as Sinead O’Connor shredded one of the great Pope John Paul II?

It’s not as if Islam doesn’t threaten our artists more than does Christianity.

See only the murder of film director Theo van Gogh or the fatwa on writer Salman Rushdie or the stabbing of Rushdie’s translator. Or see those deadly riots against the Mohammed cartoons.

So when I see a Western artist mock Christ, I see an artist advertising not his courage but his cowardice – by not daring to mock what would threaten him more.

I am most certainly not saying that moderate Islam should now be treated with the childish disrespect so often shown to Christianity.

Nor am I saying most Muslims endorse violence, or that there aren’t a few Christians who might turn violent, too.

After all, the chocolate Jesus has been removed from display when Lab Gallery’s boss was bombarded with complaints and even – he claims – threats.

But I am saying that more people now know there is a double standard here illustrated perfectly by the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, which banned acts that told jokes against Muslims but promoted ones that lampooned Christians.

It’s this blatant double standard that may finally have shamed some of the usual jeerers into showing Christianity a little respect.

And perhaps – just perhaps – more of us might be wakening to a truth we too long took for granted. It’s no accident that we feel safer insulting Christians than trashing almost anyone else.

This is a religion that’s always preached tolerance, reason and non-violence, even if too many of its followers have seemed deaf.

It’s also urged us to leave the judgment of others to God (a message I ignore for professional reasons). We are the beneficiaries of that preaching, even those of us who aren’t Christians.

We live in a society, founded on Christian principles, that guards our right to speak, and even to abuse things we should praise.

We can now vilify Jesus and damn priests, and risk nothing but hard looks from a soft bishop, and a job offer from The Age.

We dare all that because we do not actually fear what we condemn. We know Christians are taught not to punch our smarmy face, and we even count on it. Indeed, it is the very faith we mock that has made us so safe.

This is one reason why I, an agnostic, will today do what I do every Easter, and play Bach’s divine St Matthew Passion while I sit for a while and give thanks.

I will be thanking again not only a preacher of astonishing moral clarity and courage, but one who inspired a faith that has brought us unparalleled gifts – including the freedom to create even a chocolate Jesus in this most holy of weeks.

I don't understand this one. This image is rendered in everything from stone to gold, so why not chocolate? Not only is it a respectable medium, I'd say most would be honored have their image sculpted from it. And, what, people think they nailed Jesus to a cross but made sure to cover him with a loin cloth?

Bwahaha! :rolleyes:

Fooled, again. I should have known earlier in the article that this was satire.

Who gets to eat the chocolate jesus and is he dark chocolate or milk chocolate?

The right to mock Christianity's foibles was bought with the blood of countless "heretics" and should not be abandoned lightly.

Artists in Muslim-run countries should do the same, and hope for the day when they are no longer doing it at a risk to their life.

If it weren't for the tolerant Christians that built this country, you could be be spending your spare time with a hot cup of STFU.

Are you kidding, Bruce?

If it weren't for the tolerant Christians that we've built up in this country, that is. I'd have had that cup of STFU right here in this country not too too long ago, and in many places they're still trying to hand them out. No thanks.

That's alright...I thought Foot-cubed was a chick until a few days ago.

All that sensitivity training paid off.

Yeah...now I'll quit slapping your ass and calling you "sexy."

Sheldon, on the other hand...

A little Easter music.

That's funny Steve.

that had me crying. i forgive you for the parking game now

You win some, you lose some. :cool:

I can't even begin to understand the real words they're singing as long as the subtitles are there.

We've never done anything for easter. This year, my kids just stuffed their faces with chocolate, then I cooked dinner then day over. Tho my daughter likes it, it being one of the 3 days a year that she's allowed chocolate before breakfast

I kind of forgot about Easter, until I listened to an irate voicemail from my mother late last night. Whoops!

It's just a regular workday for us. Monkeyboy's Jewish, and we've never celebrated Passover, either. I wish we would, I think having a seder would be a great experience.

These days, he might have BEEN a chick up until a few days ago. hehehe

My Dad turned up, with easter eggs for me, my mum, my brother, my brother's wife, my ex and my nieces. Bless him. They're all identical and they're all half melted from being in the back of his van through two sunny days :P

I got my youngest boy cricket pads and my oldest boy got some skateboard stuff. They also got a few small eggs as well.

This is the first year we haven't done a big easter egg hunt around the yard and that's mainly because I just didn't have time to organize it this year. As it was I had to finish work early on Easter Sat to get the presents.