Thanks to the wonders of Google, I finally learned the intricate history of the Easter celebration and how it came to involve decorated eggs and basket bequeathing rabbits. The egg has apparently represented “rebirth” and “new life” for thousands of years. The ancient Persians painted eggs for Nowrooz, their New Year celebration, which falls on the Spring Equinox. The Nawrooz tradition has existed for at least 2,500 years. A hard-boiled egg dipped in salt water is part of the Jewish Passover Seder and symbolizes the Passover sacrifice. Pre-Christian Saxons had a Spring Goddess called “Eostre,” who was celebrated at a feast on the Vernal Equinox (around March 21). Her favored animal was the Spring Hare, which represents the fertility of spring and the abundant opportunity for new life.
Pope Gregory the Great ordered his missionaries to absorb old religious rites and festivals into Christian rituals when possible, so the Christian celebration of the Resurrection of Christ was ideally suited to form out of traditions set forth from the Pagan feast of Eostre. Thus began the celebration of Easter and the inclusion of eggs and rabbits. Now I know. Thank you, Google.
When I was growing up, Easter was a special day. A few weeks prior my mother would take us shopping for new Easter clothes. Sometimes it was even earlier, and those clothes would held for us in Layaway, somewhere in the back room of Lerman’s Department Store. It was always exciting. Easter was a day to look our best. We would wear those clothes again throughout the year, but we never looked as good as we did on that one Sunday in spring.
There are four extra special days in the Kid Year:
- Christmas
- Halloween
- Birthday
- Easter
Other days were good (last day of school, Valentine’s Day, etc.), but only those particular days held the mystery and promise of gifts and candy. What a wonderful thing to wake up on Easter Sunday morning to find a basket full of chocolate happiness. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, digging through that tangle of cheap green plastic grass, I searched for the treasures hidden within and that which had fallen to the bottom. It was great to be a kid.
On Easter Sunday the ladies in my church were stunning in their spring attire. Most had been to the beauty shop on Thursday or Friday to have their hair permed, colored and trimmed, and the few inches of hair you could actually see under their bright and flower adorned hats looked perfect. Even as a boy, on a day when candy mysteriously appeared in baskets delivered by a human sized rabbit, I had mind enough to notice the pretty dresses and hats. Our church was a small church, and our choir was not so much a choir as a group of people who just happened to stand in the choir loft and sang with everyone else. There was not an Easter Cantata, but as a congregation we always sang the standards: “He Arose,” “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” and “Because He Lives.” After the service, the older men would go out and hide eggs on the big front lawn, and I remember to this day the excitement of running on that crisp, cut grass, hunting through tulip beds and around sticky bushes.
Those were real eggs then, not the fake plastic ones we use today. No fancy glitter or stickers, just plain old colored eggs…and that was plenty good enough. Each family had brought some eggs for the hunt, and we had colored ours the day before, dipping them in that hot, smelly vinegar mixture that we had to use back then. My fingers will still be a little stained on Easter Sunday morning from handling the eggs while still wet. I didn’t mind.
At home Mom always had a good meal waiting for us, and although that was typical for any Sunday, on Easter there was an added degree of difficulty. She not only had to cook a small feast, she had to stop four kids from overdosing on peeps and cocoa products, get them ready and presentable, fix breakfast, clean that up, get dressed, and have us all ready to walk out the door when Dad was ready to leave. I’ve been involved with a lot of meetings and coordinated a lot of projects. I’ve seen a lot of war movies. I have never known anyone who could marshall the troops and maintain a schedule like my mother on a Sunday morning.
I know today we can’t leave a bread crumb out for fear of some kind of airborne bacteria causing food poisoning in less than five minutes, but back then Mom would leave green beans and corn covered on the stove, and Ham, chicken or casseroles in the oven, where the Reynolds’s Wrap would keep it from getting too brown and it would all stay warm until we returned after church. Somehow, by the time I had gone to my room, changed out of my Sunday best and returned to the kitchen, Mom had also changed clothes, reheated most of the food and set the table. She was like a NASCAR pit crew racing to get her family to the table, and she was always a winner.
Later, on those lazy, happy Easter afternoons, when the fullness of lunch was allowing us to walk again, we’d have another egg hunt. Some of the eggs had cracked by then and others were scratched a bit. They still hid just as well, and we had just as much fun. By evening we had hunted our last egg, and despite the fact that they had spent most of the day lying on the ground in the warm spring sun, we cracked them open and ate them with a dash of salt. We know better than that now, because those eggs should have killed us. Year after year, egg after egg…they never did. It could have been an Easter miracle, or just the innocence of a much simpler time, but I didn’t even get a tummy ache.
No comments:
Post a Comment