-KitKat Bunny Ears, YUM!, photo by Sky Wire
Happy Day. I don’t want to do a long post on the meaning of Easter. But it would be a shame to let a controversial Holiday pass without at least commenting on the day.
Growing up, I was one of those stiff little girls headed to church wearing white crinoline, black patent leather, and a little flower trimmed Easter bonnet. Okay, the old photos from the 50’s and 60’s are kind of cute. But I hated dressing up!
In 2007, there are many American companies that give employees Good Friday off. It is a religious holiday to some; not to all.
There is great controversy surrounding the use of the word Easter in terms like Easter Bunny or Easter basket. If you don’t believe me, check out the What a Character! post on the Defend the Easter Bunny site about Walnut Creek banning the Easter Bunny from the city’s Easter egg hunts.
Or the Rhode Island public middle school that renamed the Easter Bunny scheduled to make an appearance at a craft fair, Peter Rabbit.
There’s an online AOL poll around the controversy. So far, 92% of the people that took the poll are against the Rhode Island ban of changing the term Easter Bunny to Peter Rabbit. The poll said that 87% of those same people celebrate Easter. That’s America for you.
These days I celebrate Ostara, the Rites of Spring, and the underlying current behind the modern day celebration of bunnies and eggs at Easter. Somehow over time, all the Pagan celebrations blended with the Christian celebrations. And what a crock pot stew of Holidays we have today.
What does all this have to do with writing? Semantics. It comes back to that old politically correct thing. The English language is loaded with offensive references. How far do we take censorship? It’s a real topic for writers. Something that tugs at me every time I write a piece.
But this morning, I want to lounge around in my PJ’s, break open the KitKat Bunny (my second favorite candy bar next to Snickers) Liz bought at Cub the other day, and enjoy the beginning of Spring. And I think Wordraw mentioned he was going to feed his two cats rabbit for dinner.
May you celebrate as you do. We live in a country where religious freedoms are protected. There is no one right way.
Whoever you are, whatever you celebrate, enjoy the day.
Sunday, April 8th, 2007
The thing about Easter is, whether we like it or not, we think of fluffie bunnies and colored eggs. I now have the freedom to not put on my new Easter outfit, though I do miss the incredible meal at Grandma’s house after church.
Banning the bunny will not make us a society that is open to all cultures and traditions. We have to dig much deeper than a holiday symbol. But if we must, then who’s next? Uncle Sam on the 4th? Why not, he’s a more accurate target… the old white guy who still holds tight to his power over others.
Ok, ok, back to the bunnies. I want to send my peeps at red Ravine a virtual rabbit’s foot for good luck on their amazing blog. Not that ya’ll need it. This is an incredible source of inspiration for all the wanna-be writers out there. We can see how much work and dedication it takes to make it happen.
Way to go!
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My memories of Easter center around the excitement of getting up, sneaking in to the living room to see what the Easter Bunny brought us before getting ready to go to church.
It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized that for some people there is little distinction between the Christian celebration of Easter and the commercial celebration of easter. In fact there seemed to be more of an emphasis on the commercial side than the religious side in most of our homes. Church was a very small part of the day with the rest of the day being dedicated to eating the ears off of chocolate rabbits, finding hidden eggs (well, most of them), sharing our table with relatives and sitting back reveling in the gluttony of the meal and discussing the cakes and pies we have yet to eat.
My children are growing up in a much different culture where the religious diversity of their friends has caused them to see that Easter (the raising of Christ) and easter (the celebration of the visit of the candy toting rabbit) are not celebrated by everyone. When their non-Christian friends get easter baskets from the Easter Bunny but are not versed in the Easter story they are seeing this day clearer than the adults in the Rhode Island Middle School that we all celebrate this time of year in our own way.
Having just celebrated Norouz with my Persian friends, I realize once again how much my culture shares with every other culture and regardless of my religious beliefs we all come from mother earth and will all return there.
So, I second qouinmonkey in wishing you a very nice April 8th, regardless of whether you celebrate Easter, easter, Ostara or just another season when our candy selection becomes a little more fun. May it be as better than yesterday and half as good as tomorrow.
R3
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skywire,
I agree. The freedom to not put on my Easter outfit is one of the perks of growing up! But I miss the incredible Southern Easter displays my mother used to put on. Whew. Cooking just doesn’t happen the way it used to.
I liked your comment about Uncle Sam. You are right. Who’s next? Censorship is not the answer. It’s the easy way out. We have to dig a lot deeper than that.
Thanks for your comment. And thanks for the kudos on red Ravine. We really poured our hearts into it. It’s great to be seen. And good that our hearts are out there on our sleeves.
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R3,
I appreciated your comment. I was struck by this paragraph:
“Having just celebrated Norouz with my Persian friends, I realize once again how much my culture shares with every other culture and regardless of my religious beliefs we all come from mother earth and will all return there.”
I agree. There are many more similarities than differences between cultures. Though there are so many who do not want to see the ways we are all much more the same.
Can you talk some about Norouz with your Persian friends and what that celebration was like?
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We celebrated Easter today by getting together with family, eating ham and asparagus and other great food. We do Easter egg hunts with the kids. I guess it’s all pretty much the same kind of thing we grew up with, minus the new patent leather shoes and dress and hat and gloves. (Although my girls wouldn’t mind that part at all.)
Yesterday I stopped in at one of those dollar stores to pick up some goodies for the Easter baskets, and it did dawn on me how Easter is starting to fill a lot like Christmas. The young woman at the cash register even said, It’s just like Christmas. She was referring to the amount of stuff parents were buying for kids. That part is pretty strange–I never got much besides a few Peeps and a chocolate marshmallow egg. Oh, and those really sugary jelly beans.
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Peeps. I actually used to love those things. Pink. White. Green. It didn’t matter. I hated jelly beans. I don’t get what all the fuss is about jelly beans.
Did you see Skywire’s link up above to Peeps? What is it about Peeps? I used to like them better when they had aged a little and the outsides got kind of hard.
Hey, you did a drawing that was kind of about peeps. At any rate, it reminded me of Easter.
Oh, yeah. Here it is – your drawing – Spring Chicks.
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No, I didn’t realize the Peeps also had a link. I should have known!! It’s kind of hard to see that in comments unless you move your cursor over the words. I still love Peeps, except when they get hard when you leave them out. Gotta eat them right away.
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I was going to post a comment on Easter in Venezuela in how it is very different from Easter in the USA. I decided to post it on my blog instead. Here’s a link.
http://mimbresman.blogspot.com/
mm
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Mimbresman,
I actually read your post on Easter last night. I also checked out your blog. I love to read about the cultural differences. And I want to comment. Is there a way to do an anonymous comment on your pieces without joining?
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QM,
I am an expat and deeply home-sick New Mexican. (I miss the Land of Enchantment big time!)
I am good friend of ybonesy and she got me interested in your (excellent btw) collaborative blog. I consider her and her husband, Jim, two of my best friends and favorite people. Their daughters; I know Dee better than Em, are wonderful little girls.
I created my blog totally by accident last summer. I am trying to keep it non-political, and totally about some of the more interesting observations of the world I experience. The Easter post is the only one that has any reference to the political situation in Venezuela.
I guess it could be a called an experiment or a blog in progress. I don’t post on it as often as I should. I e-mailed ybonesy last night telling her how Red Ravine has got me interested in writing again, so maybe I’ll post more often.
As far as posting stuff anonomously, send me an e-mail of what you have in mind and let me ponder it some because I really don’t know what direction I want my blog to go right now. More posts, definately.
mm
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mm,
Thanks for your note. It’s good to learn more about you. I understand about not knowing the direction you want your blog to go. And the political aspects of that. I was fascinated by your Easter day in Venezuela. Thanks for writing about it. I’ll hold any comments for now.
The other writes I was struck by were your kayaking photos. I always wanted to kayak but have never learned.
And the bottle rockets video! I loved that! Wow. How did you get into kayaking and bottle rockets?
For anyone who wants to see the bottle rockets video – here’s the link to the site again: http://mimbresman.blogspot.com/
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