When I was a kid growing up, the celebration of Easter was always a big one.
Little shavers dressed up in their Easter finery to go to church that morning accompanied by their dapper dads and pretty moms - ladies wearing pretty pastels along with hats and white gloves to accentuate the special occasion.
Apart from the religious significance of the holiday, there was also the secular side.
Be honest. What self-respecting tot doesn’t salivate over the notion of a commercially-packaged Easter basket stuffed with a variety of seasonal confections? Or obsess about a super large chocolate bunny.
Still, as we sit here on Palm Sunday - a week from one of the holiest of all Holy days - I find myself asking the question: What do bunnies, baskets and eggs have to do with Easter Sunday?
Certainly, if you turn to theology, there isn’t a direct correlation.
So, to answer the question for myself, I went where any blogger would go in this modern wireless age. I looked it up on the internet.
I found many sources that said, essentially, the same things. The associations of rabbits, eggs, baskets and so forth with Easter evolved over a number of years. The ideas started in pre-Christian times in Europe and crossed the Atlantic with many of our ancestors. The symbols morphed into what we find in grocery stores and discount chains today.
You can look it up too, if you like. Most of the sources I read said essentially the same thing.
What the sites didn’t do is tie everything up in a neat Easter package for me - complete with pastel celophane paper with a bright ribbon.
I understand what I read and I get it about life and vitality and fertility and all of that. But, when I break off a piece of a white chocolate bunny next weekend, it still doesn’t bring me back to ‘the reason for the season.’
What it does do, however, is remind me of family traditions. My generous mother has sought out that same tasty treat for me for decades and she will lovingly get it for me and make sure I enjoy it - even if I don’t actually see her next Sunday. I suspect she will do the same for my sister. And her girls. And my teens.
Maybe even for herself?
It’s tradition. It’s about family. It’s about love. And that ties back in with those first couple of paragraphs I wrote.
So when I enjoy this year’s Easter treat - even if it should happen to be one that I bought for myself - it will immediately take me back in time to a spring long-ago when I was the little shaver and when I was the one so excited about what the Easter Bunny would bring in the morning.
JG
(Source: history.com)
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