False Bunny Worship

Easter is a holidays where commercialism is so disassociated with the real meaning of the holiday, so as to leave you scratching your head.  At least at Christmas we can all agree on "peace on earth, goodwill toward men."  What do we get at Easter?  A genus confused Cadbury bunny who drops foiled wrapped pellets of liquid sugar in a chocolate shell.  I am learning that there are also various beliefs and practices on Easter.  The Easter Bunny does appear at the center of these differences.  Years ago (much too early for my liking), Adrienne ratted out the Easter Bunny to the kids.  When I asked her why she told the kids so young, she replied that she did not want to disturb the kids with the idea of a giant six foot tall rabbit lurking around the house in the middle of the night (regardless of how good his pellets taste).

It was then that I realized that we had very different ideas of the Easter Bunny.  I just assumed that it was a magical fuzzy little bunny sent by Jesus with lots of candy.  I had to concede that a giant hare crawling out of a hole in Chernobyl pushing various shades of plastic grasses on the Christian and semi-Christian massed would cause me to loose sleep at night too.  For this reason, I could not fault the Mrs. for outing the Easter Bunny.

Still, I believe that I can give God that which is God's and Cadbury that which is Cadbury's.  So we'll go with the Easter fun while making sure that we remember the Christian purpose of the holiday.

Each Easter we, of course, get the kids to church and watch some church program on the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord (Lamb of God is a particular favorite).  We also traditionally have a ham dinner, which I guess is prove to ourselves that we are in fact Christian and not Jewish.  This is all done in the presence of copious amounts of candy.

Over the years I have filmed the kids on Easter morning, walking the stairs in various states of consciousness to load up on candy that I will likely end up eating myself.  These videos have been sitting untouched on my computer for years, so I thought it is a good time to show a compilation of some these videos.

Let start with 2002 when we lived in Suncrest, UT.  We just had Patrick and Locke running amuck.  I have noticed that each one of these videos contains the world's worst color-commentary by your struly.  It is definitely embarrassing to myself, but I guess not much more than I am on any given day.

The next trip down memory lane is 2004.  We added little Olivia (Smeagol) to the family video this year.  It is always fun to watch the little one try to get the hang of gathering eggs and candy thrown about the house.  Each Easter we (mostly I) watch Ben Hur. One on of the best movies of all times and framed by the birth and resurrection of Jesus - not to mention and amazing chariot race.  A good Easter fit in my opinion.

Next year is 2009 after we are well established in NH.  I have begun to notice that my color commentary and filming of Adrienne over the years has never been well received.  This may have something to do with me filming her first thing in the morning wearing pajamas with no make-up.  So what does a guy do in this situation?   Just posts the sucker on Youtube.  Brilliant thinking genius, brilliant!

Lastly I am adding this year's video (2013).  Kids are much older now, but they still do well gathering up the candy.  Ronin is still learning what to do.  I'll miss these ages.

I think that Adrienne had the best observation of the holiday, "I wish we could just have all of the stuff laying around the house magically turn into candy at the end of the day.  The kids are so thorough in picking it up." True indeed.

Happy Easter!