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Easter is a lovely Christian expression of faith and love and hope eternal. Oh Death, where is thy sting?
And then we hunt Easter eggs.
Let the race begin.
At my house, we don’t give gifts to children for Easter. The gift is that Jesus of Nazareth walked out of a sealed tomb—alive!
As gifts go, resurrection is pretty stunning.
But then we throw eggs into bushes and candy under the garden bridge and say to the children, “Go. Hunt. Gather!”
Around here, the Easter Bunny YaYa tosses bags of candy under spring flowers for the children to find with the express instruction, “If you find a BAG of candy it’s for everyone—not just for you. We will pour it into a giant communal bowl of Easter happiness and,” I add, holding my breath dramatically, “share.”
They all nod.
But still, a whole, unopened bag of Skittles just for me, me, me. It’s tricky.
The children, who are the parents of the children, accuse me of fomenting rebellion with my one for all and all for all approach. Their solution is to throw empty, plastic Easter eggs about and hope the kids don’t notice the hollow sound when they pick them up. Several of the children, after finding their empty eggs this year, brought them to me and wanted to “cash them in.”
I pointed to the giant bowl of Easter happiness candy. “Share,” I said.
This year I only had to snatch one bag of M&M’s out of one young man’s hands. Not bad, really. Could have been worse. I could have had to chase that crazy kid around the yard and rip the bag of candy out of his hands.
The older I get the less I enjoy the holidays. I like the regular days where we’re supposed to be grateful, happy, kind, loving, and Christian—because we’re supposed to—not because we’re looking to cash in our golden eggs.
Linda (Back to Work) Zern
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