It’s time for us, as a society, to face facts: when it comes to quantifiable enjoyment and general awesomeness, Easter is far from the best holiday.
Look, if you want to celebrate Jesus dying for your sins and then rising from the grave? Terrific, really. Anyone not being dead is, for the most part, a good thing. Unfortunately, the holiday of Easter itself is . . . Well, it’s kind of lame.
The way we celebrate Easter, much like the way we celebrate every other major holiday in North America, is based on a previously existing pagan holiday that Christianity painted over for the sake of filling up the social calendar. If you ever wondered what rabbits and Easter eggs and all that other shit have to do with Jesus, the answer is that they have nothing to do with him. Christianity merely co-opted everything they did because they couldn’t think of anything better, a tradition we hold dear to this very day.
The sad thing is that, despite the fact that we basically stole the holiday part and parcel, Easter is kind of lame. Super lame. First off, the Easter Bunny: Not cute. The Easter Bunny is a member of that special group of childhood deities that parents think are cute and cuddly but will, in fact, scare the ever-loving pee out of kids. A jolly fat guy giving you presents? Kickass! A giant rabbit demon that shits colourful eggs in your backyard and dresses like a child molester? SHOOT ON SIGHT.
And the eggs . . . Oh God, the eggs. You haven’t truly lived until you’ve gotten into a four-way fist fight over some hard-boiled eggs in your yard. Because every Easter egg hunt will inevitably degrade into kids punching each other in the mouths over pastel chicken ova. Seriously, every Easter Egg hunt I ever attended as a kid ended with everyone involved trying to beat the Easter goodness out of each other. It’s basically The Hunger Games with a religious white-washing.
So yes, enjoy the long weekend and the time spent with your family and the rising of your saviour from the grave. Just don’t pretend that the celebration we have to put up with is any fun.
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