English: A milk chocolate Easter Bunny. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The jury is still out on whether or not encouraging belief in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy is a good idea or a very bad idea. Mmmm
Personally I think instilling fantasy into your chid’s head at an early age, only makes it easier for them later in life when after 20 years with the same person borders on extreme boredom. Lucky for me, my parents allowed me to believe in everything for as long as I wanted to pretend I still did. These early-in-life lesson are invaluable when it comes to faking an orgasm, don’t you agree?
I think my first reality was around the Easter bunny. You know the concept was just too far-fetched. I mean, was this rabbit the size of an adult. How did he get from house to house? He didn’t have a sleigh and he, heck we don’t even know if he was a he or a she and either way, there were no wings! And why would a rabbit be delivering eggs? Where did he get them? I never saw any Easter chickens just Easter chicks. Well besides all the hard to believe stuff, being Catholic, it was also not so easy to get into the frivolity aspect of Easter. After all it followed 40 days of somber repentance, deprivation, fasting and lots and lots of church going. And as if the 40 days of Lent weren’t serious enough, the last 3 were downright psychologically disturbing!
There was Holy Thursday and off we went to some service – Church in the middle of the week! And just when it was getting to be lighter later and all of us kids wanted to play hide and seek after supper. That was only mildly unpleasant,…what followed was much worse. Good Friday dawned and you knew this was not going to be a fun day at all. There was no loud laughing or running around and of course no meat at any meal. Between 12 noon and 3pm, you could hear a pin drop, silence was encouraged. I went to parochial school so I think we definitely had the day off. If you hadn’t been to confession by Good Friday, you were surely going that day! Since I had made my First Communion while in second grade, you can only imagine the terrors that dark little closet-like cubicle held for an 8 year old! Then it was off to a very long, very somber service. There were the Stations of the Cross and think about those horror scenes described in detail as heard by a young child! My daughter doesn’t want Finley to watch Squarepants Sponge Bob or Kung Fu Pandas and my father took me to hear the Stations of the Cross and to witness this gigantic crucifix laying across the altar steps and people went up to kiss the feet or something! YIKES!
One more day before we finally get the candy!!! Holy Saturday was another quiet day but at least I didn’t have to go to Church. Instead we were allowed to play quietly on the front steps – I remember playing jacks with my two friends in the afternoon. Things lightened up a bit by Saturday night; Grandma and Grandpa arrived and lots of food preparation was underway for Sunday’s big dinner. After a bath before bed, my clothes were laid out for big dress-up event of the spring – your Easter outfit.
Patent leather shoes, a new dress, a lightweight duster-like coat and of course a hat. White straw with maybe a navy blue ribbon edging and flowers on top. My dad always got my mom a corsage and I used to get a wristlet corsage of pink baby roses or pink carnations. Dressed up and decked out, we went to High Mass and after (and only after) Mass, we went home for breakfast and our Easter baskets. I have to say one of the most liberal moments in my upbringing was that I was allowed to eat as much candy and eggs in my basket as I wanted to. Maybe my parents thought the sooner the basket is empty, the sooner the sugar high would subside.
By noon on Easter Sunday, all was right with the world again. The extended family was in residence, the Easter dinner was delicious, and there was chocolate and more chocolate and more chocolate.
Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy hung around a lot longer. Not surprising since there was so much more in it for me than a hollow chocolate bunny and some jelly beans! I say let the stories live on; I always pictured the Tooth Fairy to look a lot like Tinkerbell. Santa Claus surely looked like the Coca Cola image of St. Nicholas as far as I was concerned.
What’s the point in telling your kids the truth? You will only then have to come across with the latest toy fad or suffer the stigma of being the only parent who was unwilling to go to Walmart at 3am to stand in line to get that………(you fill in the blank since it changes every year).
So here’s the question again, Is the Easter Bunny coming to your house?
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