I was originally going to do a post regarding travel. Where do you want to go, etc? However, thanks to the rise of CoVID (two folks on my shift are apparently off for a while) I think that is a really cruel thing to do and will do that at a later time when various local governments aren’t so damn stupid or sticking their overgrown heads up their butts.
I enjoyed Easter as a kid. It was a fun time making colored easter eggs (I had no talent to make beautiful Ukrainian Easter Eggs) and going on an easter egg hunt.
As I got older the religious aspect (and not the candy aspect) of the holiday was considered more important.
I had to do the Yout’ Easter Address at church twice because both years I got sick with a cold three weeks earlier and was “volunteered” for the role (everyone took a step back.) It helped overcome my fear of public speaking as I learned not to fear older people judging me. Say it loud, say it proud.
As a non believer, I prefer to celebrate the Spring Solstice and the rebirth of nature from its winter slumber (and while munching a chocolate egg or ten.) What do you enjoy about the holiday?
Or whatever strikes your fancy tonight…
Easter egg decorating got super fun when in high school I realized you can use a set of cheap soft pastels to do all sorts of patterns on eggs before you dye them and have the patterns stay on. Like the old white crayon trick, but better.
We were really shitty catholics growing up, not even C&E catholics (attending Christmas and Easter masses only), more like once in a while we went to mass. My mom specifically would not go to mass on Easter Sunday because church was packed to standing room only and she felt like it would be rude of us to take pew space away from people who actually attended regularly because it was more important to them than us. 🙂
Personal opinion Palm Sunday mass was always waaaaaay worse than any other mass because it lasted like an hour and a half which for a catholic service, yuck.
Amateurs. We spent about 10 hours in church every Sunday. But Easter? Easter was grueling because first you had to do your Easter egg hunt, so we were rooted out of bed at 6 am to find Easter eggs.
Since Easter was all about Jesus we weren’t permitted to miss anything. I mean, I was never permitted to miss anything — I can count on two fingers the number of times I was allowed to stay home sick from church — but under no circumstances could we stay home on Easter. Over the years I probably gave the flu to dozens of old people who subsequently died of it. Hopefully they made it into the arms of Jesus.
And then when all of us got old enough to be in choir, Easter got really ugly because the normal afternoon break on Easter Sunday got booked up with final rehearsals for Easter cantata. Which of course you’d already been rehearsing for months in advance, and the final week it was every night.
My family had a significant degree of musical ability and we were conscripted into anything remotely musical so my parents could bask in reflected glory.
I may have mentioned once or twice that I hated church with a passion.
No. Fucking. Way.
I just can’t imagine that. I’m glad you’re free.
That sounds like my dad’s upbringing. Dutch Calvinist church. What was your flavour?
I’m always grateful that my mom’s side was a far more reasonable Episcopalian and that was the church we went to.
Southern Baptist. Once upon a time before they collectively lost their minds, it was a reasonably respectable religion (I mean, the no drinking or dancing is bullshit but beyond that it was pretty normal). My father was a Southern Baptist minister, but by the time I was born he couldn’t find a church and had become an elementary schoolteacher. Now most parishioners weren’t required to do the things my family did — my family was unusual, to the point that all my “church” friends noticed.
My parents weren’t conmen or hucksters — they truly believed in this. I did not — by the time I’d read through the Bible the second time I realized it was a poorly organized collection of general nonsense. I was 8. I’ve read it since and my opinion remains unchanged. I realized that Baptists marginalized women and were raging homophobes, both of which I find unacceptable, in my teens. So by that point I’d developed real issues with the dogma, not just that it didn’t make sense. My best friend (also a “church” friend) was gay. That … did not end well and cemented my disdain.
My mother in particular felt an enormous responsibility to “serve Jesus” and she was the prime motivator of mandatory attendance. My father actually wasn’t that terribly rabid about it, but Mom was ferocious. You couldn’t stay home to watch a favorite program or special on TV (and remember you couldn’t record in my youth). You couldn’t be sick. I have vivid memories of going to church with a raging fever and even performing that way. Also you weren’t supposed to do any “work” so Saturdays were chore days and the most you could get away with on Sunday was homework and that my mom forced us to do outside services.
It’s weird because I have a lot of anger about it but my parents were trying to do the “right” thing. God knows I wasn’t abused or mistreated like other kids were. I mean, sitting in a pew is not onerous. It’s just that it ruled our lives outside school. I couldn’t do things that other kids did, even my “church” friends. We’d show up at services and none of my friends were there because their parents actually let them stay home to do homework or watch TV.
So yeah, all these years later still weird. I’ve tried going to other denominations in the years since (mostly for my daughter) but I get tired of dragging myself there and I think my attitude is blatantly obvious — we never make any friends. And I won’t perform or let myself get sucked into their music programs. I pretended for too many years and I won’t put on any sort of pretense in front of a congregation ever again.
My older three siblings are pretty devout and my little sister claims to believe but doesn’t attend church at all. I’m the only apostate and I simply avoid the topic at family gatherings. If my back is against the wall I’ll offer a “blessing” before the meal but that’s hardly ever my responsibility (my brother has to do it as the oldest male).
I could write about this for days.
It sounds like you grew up in Puritan Boston, except for the musical performances. The Puritans weren’t into singing and instrument-playing. Did your church kind of ignore Christmas? The Puritans did. After all, babies are born every day. The puritans produced loads of them, because the infant and child mortality rates were so high. No, for them Christmas, was just December 25th, an ordinary day, but Easter was when they pulled out all the stops, because that is when Jesus became the Christ and revealed his divinity. In fact, if you were found to be doing anything on Christmas Day out of the ordinary the consequences could be severe, because it was seen as blasphemy.
I once read an article about whatever happened to Puritanism. It morphed three times. I can’t remember the intervening two steps but now the modern version of Puritanism, much evolved, is Congregationalism.
Heavens, no. Christmas was a non-stop full-blown month-long event, with numerous services, musical performances and concerts, activities, and crap that had to be attended. See my post above. My mother required us to be there every single time the doors opened, no matter what. Plus we were usually featured performers.
We had Christmas Eve services that ran until midnight and Christmas Morning services that started at 6 am before you opened presents. God, I hated those. Also New Year’s Eve services that ran until midnight and New Year’s Morning services. Every holiday was an opportunity to gather the faithful.
Baptists view additional services as income opportunities through “passing the plate” or “offerings.” There were whole services themed around specific donation opportunities, like the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for the Foreign Mission Board.
Interestingly, I’m told this has all fallen away now. Most people now refused to attend all those services, and the church staff also refuses to work that hard. Just my luck to participate in its heyday.
I figured as much. I think there is a sect that still doesn’t observe Christmas–the Jehovah Witnesses maybe?
I think that’s right. Also Seventh Day Adventists, I think. I steer clear of that weirdness so I don’t even know.
i grew up having to walk aroud with an easter cock on a stick….
christianity is wierd
i’ll just point at the above and let you work out for yourselves why im agnostic at best
I love the weirdo old traditions. Like that was totally some pagan ritual for millenia and then *slap a cross on it* now it’s Christian.
sounds about right…..tho i’ve no clue where the fucking easter chicken came from
i dont think its christian
A lot of stuff also got invented after paganism disappeared. I think there’s a fair amount of evidence of a lot of hucksters making stuff up out of thin air to push a lot of souvenirs and junk food, just like today people make up American Indian traditions to con the tourists.
That’s a new one for me!
We’re nonreligious but have a bunch of Christian traditions. Growing up, my favourite part of Easter was the egg smashing competition. My German family is uptight and “proper” (Von Trapp style obedience was expected of the children) so this competition always made them feel more human and fun. Everyone got to choose their fighting egg at the begining of the meal. The anticipation would rise as we started eating. Eyes darting toward my Grandmother who always initiated the competition. As long as one side of your egg is in tact you can challenge anyone at the table. You cup your egg in your hand with just the head or bum visible and you smash them together. This goes on until there is only one egg left uncracked. My Grandmother always won… she must have the perfect sized hand to cup the egg and distribute the force of impact.
This is another tradition I never heard of.
Grandma cheated and used a wooden egg.
Dude! Totally could be. We had those ones as decorations every year.
Easter was my favorite holiday growing up. Because for some reason it wasn’t usually at our house so I didn’t have to do a bunch of work. It was only my immediate family going to mass and then having brunch at an aunt and uncle’s home. My aunt did all the cooking and the food was always fantastic. There were small baskets of candy for us kids in addition to the ones the bunny brought to our house. And they let us have sloe gun in our 7 up which I thought was so cool. Only a bit to color the soda, it was practically a Shirley Temple but was something unique to their home and I loved it.
So, about 7 hours ago, I said that we were still about a week from lambing season, and sure enough, since then TWO lambs were born and more are on their way. That’s sort of an Easter thing, isn’t it? Pictures will come this week.
Do you need to stay around for births to make sure things are OK?
I do sometimes. There are five of us checking in on the mothers periodically. My main function is to be one of the four people who check on them. If I see that they look like they’re going into labor, I contact the young woman who is the farm manager. She grew up one of these 4H kids and is magical with all the animals. She just lives at the top of the hill, so she’s here in a couple of minutes. Labor takes a good long while so we have plenty of time.
Almost all the lambs are born with no human intervention. They don’t really need us.