I’m leaving in a couple hours for time with my family, delicious food, and egg hunting. I’ll probably be gone all day, so consider the comments an open forum if you get bored. I know not every atheist is busy celebrating something they don’t believe in!

Here are my favorite memories about Easter:

– Dying Easter eggs with my grandma (who is the most amazing grandma in the world) was always the best. The traditional Greek way is to dye all the eggs red, but she’d crack out the other colors and crayons just for me. Even now that she just does the traditional eggs, she always dies one blue for me, because that’s my favorite color. This is why I love the smell of vinegar, because it always reminds me of dying eggs.

– One of the fun Greek traditions is a little game you get to play with the hard boiled colored eggs. Each person takes an egg, and you get to smash the tip of your egg onto the tip of another person’s. Only one egg will crack (don’t ask me the physics there, just trust me). After going around the table, the last person with the uncracked egg is supposed to have good luck for a year. There always seemed to be one super egg, and we joked that my grandma was pouring concrete into some of them. I think this is supposed to represent cracking open Jesus’s tomb or something, and you’re supposed to say Christos Anesti (Christ has risen) while doing it, but whatever. I just like smashing other people’s eggs.

– One year when I was about 7, my grandma asked me why we celebrate Easter. I of course happily answered, “Because that’s when the Easter bunny comes!” Whoops. Needless to say, she wasn’t too happy with my mom over the fact that I had never even heard of Jesus or God by that point. Oddly enough this is the only time I remember my grandparents explicitly mentioning religion. I wonder if they’ve just given up on me in that area?

– My parents would hide plastic eggs around the house filled with candy or quarters, which holy crap is a lot of money to a little kid! I always loved looking for them, but after a couple years I had memorized where all the good hiding spots were, so instead of an “Egg Hunt” it was more like a “Methodical Egg Retrieval.” One year I was playing upstairs in my room, and they rang the door bell pretending it was the Easter bunny. “The Easter Bunny was here, you just missed him!” they said. Wow, was I pissed. Why the hell didn’t they warn me the Easter bunny was here?! Didn’t they think I’d want to meet him?! Couldn’t they have made him wait just a minute?! These are the potential anxieties you’re instilling in your children whenever you perpetuate fictional characters, haha.

See you tomorrow, the real holiday to celebrate – Half Priced Easter Candy Day!