Religion aside, I’ve always felt such a love/hate relationship with Easter. Here’s why.
Here are 10 things I love about Easter:
- Easter is a week-long affair. Ya girl loves an event. Different days with different themes? I’m in.
- Big ass hats.
- Easter and her relationship with first wave feminism. Women marched with their “torches of freedom” (cigarettes) in the NYC Easter Parade of 1929, which was a significant moment in the fight against social barriers for women smokers. While I don’t recommend being a smoker, I do recommend the metaphorical torch passed down from these bad-ass babes.
- Gift baskets, or just baskets in general. My ideal gift basket would include: a bottle of Jack Daniels, LUSH bath bombs, unlimited tampons and 19 extra cents for every dollar I’ve ever earned.
- Decorating Easter eggs. It’s just nice to hear people talk about a “bad dye job” and it’s not about your hair.
- Jelly beans. Small bean-shaped sugar candy with thick gel interiors? Sign me up. But stay away with your black licorice ones. Not today, Satan, not today.
- Easter egg hunts with my mom. My mom was one of THOSE moms. She told me when I was “hotter” and “colder” and now I can’t find anything without her. I tried to give this job to my fiance, but it turns out I just don’t ever want to hear him say the word “hotter” and be referring to something else.
- The personal connection. My name, Stacey means “resurrection”… so like … is Easter is the day Jesus got “Stacey’d”
- Ham. Food that is high in sodium? Sign me up. #SaltyGirl
- Family. Did anyone else have a drunk uncle who would handshake them a $20 bill on every holiday? No? Just me? Cool.
As you can see, Easter is awesome. Except, here are 10 things I don’t love about the holiday:
- The Easter bunny. So, we are all just fine with Amanda’s dad showing up to our pre-school class unannounced dressed as a giant bunny hopping from window to window scaring the living shit out of us? Fuck off. And get a job, Mr. Zitterman.
- Hungarian Easter traditions. Did you know that on Easter in Hungary, women will run like hell away from groups of men who try to throw buckets of water at them? The tradition is linked to women’s fertility, and is based on the supposed “cleansing effect” of water. If water has had a cleansing effect this entire time and nobody told me, I’m going to be really angry. I could use a little detox from the patriarchy.
- Easter should have been the beginning of the #MeToo movement. Mary Magdalene was the first person Jesus appeared to after his resurrection, according to the New Testament (and the first person to preach the good news that he had arisen from the dead). But she was immediately silenced. In their defense, men don’t listen to loud, hysterical women. Ouch, their privileged ears!
- Easter 1999 and its lasting effects on my mental health. It was the Easter of 1999 when I shaved my legs for the first time, 15 minutes before we left the house for my aunts’. It was like “There Will Be Blood” but with less Daniel Day Lewis and oil and more,“Holy shit, am I dying?” and “Yes.”
- My older brother eating the Easter egg I decorated. I had to sit through hours of vinegar smell in order to scarf down my own creation, but no, Ryan got to it first. Don’t blame me for all your eggs being brown because you got cocky and tried too many colors, bro!
- Lent is 40 dang days long. The only thing I’m giving up is sacrifice and I don’t even know if I can do that for 40 days. Plus, most people only take Lent seriously when they fail their New Year’s Resolutions by late March.
- Peeps. These sugary marshmallow monsters were the first food I binged. Lucky for me, they are only around once a year. Or twice, wretched Halloween peeps.
- Chocolate rabbits with bow ties. No thanks. I surround myself with enough men who are hollow and full of lies. Give me Cadbury cream eggs or give me death.
- Going to church. My objection is not that it’s church, but that my aunt tried to always sing soprano when she was clearly an alto. Now that’s a solid reason to throw a bucket of water on a woman!
- Having to wear an intolerable, scratchy Easter dress. Jesus was uncomfortable so we didn’t have to be, right?
Easter is the worst, amirite?
