Easter has become a day for getting candy.
As the great Joni Mitchell once sang, “It’s coming on Christmas ...”
But as April blossoms, it’s not Christmas that’s ahead. It’s Easter.
You all know that holiday comes from holy day and both of those are big-time holy days. But what began one way has turned into something different for kids. One is a day for getting presents; one is a day for getting candy.
Let’s talk about that candy thing.
Jelly beans, chocolate rabbits that you always hoped were solid chocolate, chocolate eggs, chocolate everything. These days it’s not uncommon to see Skittles, Swedish Fish, malted candy eggs, all kinds of things in that basket. It was pretty much rabbits and jelly beans when I was a kid.
Do you eat Peeps any other time of year? No? Then how do the folks who make them stay in business?
I didn’t grow up with them and still haven’t developed a taste for them. There are people who love Peeps; I’m just not one of them.
Don’t forget hard-boiled eggs. Dyed hard-boiled eggs. When I was much younger, I loved that ritual. The boiling of the water with the eggs in that water. And the dyeing of those eggs when the water cooled down. That also began my short-lived fascination with vinegar. I thought it tasted yummy. For about an hour. Easter egg hunts were also big time. I must have been 7 or 8, and one of my classmates had a hunt in his backyard. There were eggs under a baseball mitt on the patio table, there were eggs in the garden, there were eggs behind trees, and guess who found almost all of them? Yours truly. Not good. I had to give them back so the other kids could find some. I didn’t know that rule.
From my perspective, Easter and Halloween are the two big candy days of the year. One you go house to house to get candy; the other, the candy is in a basket on the kitchen table.
While we’re at it, let us not forget the real reason for Easter. He is risen. Every year I would get a new suit and tie to wear to church. You should have seen me. Truth was, the suit was kinda itchy to this small boy, but that’s OK.
My parents would take pictures of my sisters and me. Them in their new Easter dresses, me in my new Easter suit.
Go to church, come home, eat more candy.
And later on, Easter dinner. Bring on the ham.
Easter this year? April 16th.
Great day.