Easter Sunday in KAF. Back home Easter means a four day weekend. Here all it means is a four day respite from answering emails from the corporate head office…and that beats the hell out of getting a chocolate rabbit any day. As D put it so poetically at breakfast this morning “The best part of holidays is the holiday part. Since we don’t get those here, fuck it”.
Yum?
As a born again, godless heathen, Easter has just been about its pagan trappings all my adult life so I’m not all tore up about not being home for it. A nice ham and mocking the kids as they made themselves sick on chocolate is pretty much how Easter went in our house. As they got older, even the mockery and candy disappeared. About a week before Easter, when my girls were about 9 and 12, I asked them “Do you guys really want me to sneak into your rooms at night, pretend I’m a goddamn giant rabbit, leave a trail of chocolate eggs (that the dog will probably eat and puke up) leading to some stuffed animal and candy you don’t really want or would you prefer cash?” “Cash!” my unbaptized little infidels joyfully shrieked. I gave ’em each $10 and a hearty “Happy Easter”. I thought this was fucking brilliant as it saved me a lot of effort and the Easter candy and shit usually set me back more than $20. My wife, on the other hand, was appalled when she found out. “You can’t just give them cash for Easter! Where’s the fun in that? If you aren’t going to abide by the traditions, then you shouldn’t give them anything!” Shamefacedly and with downcast eyes, I thought, “Bam! Just saved another $20″.
Ok, so despite being raised Catholic, it’s obvious that I’m not the best guy to consult about Easter and its traditions. Admittedly, I don’t get what the bunny, chocolate, decorated eggs and bonnets have to do with a guy being nailed to a cross and coming back to life three days later. Hell, I don’t really get how a blood sacrifice 2000 years before I was born can absolve me of sins I hadn’t even committed yet and the account of the first zombie apocalypse in Matthew 27:52-53 just creeps me out. I can, therefore, understand that people who weren’t born into the Christian tradition could be even more confused by this holiday.
A flock of Easter turkeys, the Calvary diorama and the Archangel Tom visits Christ.
Remember going to bed the day before Easter, giddy with excitement about the imminent arrival of Cannibal Turkey? Yeah, neither do I. However, I’m guessin’ the guys at Northline do. The entire place was festooned with turkeys, some of them sporting rakish Puritan hats. I don’t mean one or two…there were at least 10 of ’em. Somewhat more apropos, they had a diorama of Calvary but I don’t recall an angel in the form of a turkey in the bible story. My mind did tend to wander during religion classes in my Catholic school days, but I’m pretty sure I would’ve remembered that part.
The Easter Playboy Bunny
We were all a little perplexed by the soda pop can art installation on the floor. It was pretty damn big, obviously entailed a lot of work and was very well done (although the boobs were a little rectangular for my taste). As we discussed its Easter significance, someone suggested it was supposed to be the Virgin Mary. A derisively snorted “What does she have to do with Easter?” “Um, her son died, that’s gotta effect ya,” D replied. “Jeez, A, you sure can be a heartless asshole sometimes,” I muttered. A then authoritatively intoned “Obviously, they thought there was an Easter Playboy Bunny”. This struck me as eminently reasonable…and, disturbingly, somewhat titillating.
The Bottom Line
Thanks to the Northline folks for adding a festive (if incomprehensible) touch to the DFAC today. A change from the ordinary is welcome whether one celebrates the holiday or not. I look forward to vampire Santa or whatever you have up your sleeve for Hallowe’en.
“Most people outside of America won’t get it. It’s the Easter bunny. It’s another lie and I don’t understand why we had to invent this character.” – Todd Rundgren
Just DFACS Ma'am 
Nice cans.
I always get confused at Easter. I think it is when people remember that Santa Clause died on the cross and the Easter Bunny saw it’s shadow.
Isn’t Easter when Jesus stuck his head out of the tomb, saw his shadow, and knew there’d be six more weeks of winter?
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“Nice cans.”
Sweet Chaos, could they have done all that work just for that pun? That’s perfecto.