Easter

There are certain holidays and holiday traditions that are down-right confusing. Take for example Caga Tio or Caganers in Spain during the Christmas season. How do these things get started? Yeah, I know, I could look on Wikipedia or something for the history but, on the surface, they're strange. Another one that gets me is the tradition surrounding Easter eggs in the United States. Actually, the whole Easter deal is a little strange but don't get me started.

Each year just before Easter, parents buy their kids some eggs, hard boil them, and then the kids color them using water-based dyes. Everyone does it and no one knows why, including me. Of course, egg imagery (fertility?), decorating them (celebrating death and rebirth?), and the whole spring-solstice timing (again, seasonal rebirth?) tells me that it's an old Pagan tradition of some kind but who knows...and who cares. It's fun.

My sister's kids doing their best to have permanently-green fingers:

So, from there, the tradition holds that the Easter Bunny, which is a huge, human-sized rabbit, comes while the kids are sleeping like a springtime Santa, and hides the eggs around the house for the kids to "hunt" on Easter morning. Funny aside, if you find a "missing" egg a few months later (yes, it happens), it's just an empty shell. Where does the inside part go???

My brother rockin' out dyeing eggs with his kids:

Sorry that I don't have any photos of the kids looking for their eggs on Easter morning because I like to sleep in and have some coffee before I get going.

I can't remember the last time I was in Philadelphia for Easter but it's probably been 20 years. For my entire life we've gone over to my Aunt Linda and Uncle Bob's house for a big, whole-family, dinner. Every year dinner's the same and is some combination of ham, hot macaroni salad, baked beans, corn, and some other stuff I can't remember right now. Outside of the ham, I'm not sure that any of those foods have any significance but Easter dinner's easily third after Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners for deliciousness.

Aunt Linda prepping her family-famous macaroni salad:

What's left of our Easter dinner after the first wave of eaters came through:

I'm thinking of starting my own formerly-Pagan holiday tradition. Maybe something in fall as the weather's usually good and there's lots of yummy seasonal food. It'll definitely involve pumpkins or even egg nog and possibly burning witches or something. The kids will love it!