Does anyone have any fun Easter plans?
We don’t make a big deal of Easter. If the weather is nice, we hide eggs around the yard for my daughter to find. My daughter is not a morning person. She tends to sleep in so it’s really nice that I don’t have to get up too early to hide the eggs. After the egg hunt, we give my daughter her Easter basket with books, candy, and a couple of small toys.
My daughter is turning six at the end of the month and I wonder how much longer she will believe in the Easter Bunny. I was her age when I stopped believing in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. I never even made it to the tooth fairy.
How old were you guys when you stopped believing? Did you ever believe?
I think it’s interesting that the two major Christian holidays have popular elements that have nothing to do with Jesus. But you have to admit, as a kid Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are way more exciting than salvation.
Happy Easter – if and however you celebrate it!
I like your plans.
I don’t remember ever believing in the Easter Bunny even though we always got a basket with toys and treats. I didn’t raise my kids to believe in the bunny, but they got small toys and treats on the day.
“I think it’s interesting that the two major Christian holidays have popular elements that have nothing to do with Jesus.”
Since both holidays were co-opted from pagan traditions, that is really not surprising.
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“How old were you guys when you stopped believing? Did you ever believe?”
I was shown a film in early elementary school, possibly second grade (roughly age seven), that stated flat out that Santa Claus was a myth. Looking back, I’m a bit surprised that my teachers were brave enough to show such a thing, but that was less than a decade after Sputnik, when the USA was desperately trying to raise a crop of young scientists and engineers to help battle the communists in the USSR, so maybe doses of reality given to children were not so vilified as they are today.
OTOH, I don’t think I ever believed in the Easter Bunny. Easter was pretty much a time to eat candy, and that’s all.
While in the car this afternoon, a blurb on NPR highlighted the Greek/Latin word for Easter (Pascha) which is derived from Aramaic, a cognate for the word Hebrew Pesach, which is the word for Passover.
Passover is the celebration of the Jews from slavery in Egypt…which never happened.
The word Easter is derived from Eostre, a western Germanic goddess of spring–which is where the fertility symbols (eggs, rabbits) and daffodils come from.
In short, Easter is a holiday of many contrasts….uh, that is to say, Easter is a mish-mash of things that never happened and Pagan practices.
The wife and I will be attending Easter dinner at our son and DIL’s home. DIL will most likely have already attended an Easter Mass. We have been assigned a vegetable tray and dill dip. Family, friends, and food, and all is well. The risen Lord? Gimmy a break. But we will be respectful of the beliefs of others. Quite specifically the springtime pagan fertility goddess roots of Easter will never be mentioned.
Our grandkids are old enough to vote – so no egg hunts for them. Friends of DIL may bring children who might be invited to an egg hunt.
Leftovers will be dispersed. Monday and Tuesday will find us reheating rather than cooking.