DANIEL JOHNSON
Art Editor
There are good things about Easter, like Jesus rising from the dead, dinner featuring ham (and sometimes homemade macaroni and cheese), Cadbury Cream Eggs,Peeps and family. Every-thing else about Easter is just plain boring. I’m not saying that Easter is a bad holiday; I’m just saying that it could stand a little spicing-up to make it more competitive among other holidays. We can take a good thing like Easter and make it better with a little help.
Do you want to know why Christmas is “The most wonderful time of the year?” It is because of rampant consumerism, spiked eggnog, and time off of work and school. Easter has church, hardboiled eggs, and the feeling of a robbed holiday. Let’s compare the days: Christmas – you wake up to presents and then begin opening toys. Easter – you wake up and go to church where you feel guilty for not having attended for the past three weeks/ months/ years. With a few changes, however, Easter could be the Spring Christmas.
Christmas works better than Easter because it has a dichotomy of Christianity and secularism together as seen by the role models Jesus and Santa. The problem with Easter is that it is too focused on the religious side of the holiday. The only secular aspect to Easter is a pathetic attempt of an icon – the Easter Bunny. So I suggest a new icon maybe a playboy bunny that dispenses Easter presents. And I say ‘presents’ instead of ‘baskets’ for a reason.
The problem with Easter Baskets is that they are so limiting. You cannot get more than what fits in the basket. Clearly, the Easter basket needs to go the same way that the Christmas stocking did – it needs to take a secondary role to the main presents. We need to move away from the Easter Basket and focus on the Easter tree which should be a deciduous budding sapling symbolizing spring under which a slew of presents can reside.
Easter is also the most elusive holiday. Everyone knows that Christmas is December 25th, and even the slightly annoying Thanksgiving is still the last Thursday in November, but Easter is always flip flopping around; you never know when it’s gonna show up. I keep expecting one day in mid October to roll around and then BOOM: Easter launches a surprise holiday attack.
I think Easter sneaks up on me because there is no real school or work affiliation to it. I mean yeas we are affiliated with Easter because we are a Christian school. But my school day is not affected at all by this holiday. I get a Christmas break, and a day off for Martin Luther King Jr. and Thanks-giving, and I remember those holidays because of the day off. When is Arbor Day? Who cares. I don’t get that day off. I get Sunday off already so in my mind Easter is a wasted holiday.
Thus, I propose that the “Easter Holiday” be extended to cover not only Sunday but also Good Friday. We cannot properly focus on the greatness of Easter without a day off of work to celebrate. A day off from Sunday is not sufficient time to reflect on the true meaning of Easter.
How can we begin this transformation of Easter into a holiday that we can be proud of? First, we must establish a newfound consumerism in the holiday; ask all of your friends an family what they want for Easter Presents so they in tern will feel obligated not only to buy presents for you but also for their friends. Then establish the “Easter Holiday” by taking Good Friday off. Don’t go to school. If someone asks you to work, get indignant like they asked you to work on Christmas. If these steps are followed not only will it boost the popularity of this floundering holiday but with a Friday off and gift exchanges you’ll find your Easter Holiday to be much more satisfying.
03-24-2005