The Easter Bunny: The Easter Bunny is such a LIE. I don’t remember ever believing in the Easter Bunny. Not like with Santa Claus, where at least there was some effort put in, what with the letters to Santa, and the milk and cookies, and the whole North-Pole-as-a-viable-living-environment thing, and such.
By way of contrast, there’s just no effort put into the whole Easter Bunny mythology at all. …Why a bunny? And what does a bunny have to do with eggs? Yes, yes, they both involve fertility, and, of course, Easter is basically just an update of ancient fertility myths, and… yawn… I just almost fainted from boredom. My real issue with the Easter Bunny is there’s just no back-story for him. Where does he live? How does he manufacture all the chocolate and eggs, exactly? And what does he do the other 364 days of the year? See? You don’t know the answers to these questions either, and this is part of the whole problem with Mr. E. Bunny. Grade: D
Chocolate Bunnies: Chocolate Bunnies come in two types: hollow, and… also hollow. Has anyone ever eaten a chocolate bunny that is solid chocolate all the way through? If so, then you are probably a member of one of the ten richest families in America, and have access to a superior type of chocolate bunny that I’ve never seen, and so — congrats.
The larger types of chocolate bunnies sometimes feature candy eyes, with multi-colored stuff sunk into the regular chocolate eye-sockets. These “eyes” are made with like, blue or yellow or pink colored something-or-other. These eyes are also fucking freaky. Staring out at you with their dead, livid gaze like that. Those choco-bunnies always remind me of taxidermy and such, and I hate them. Grade: A to D, depending on the eye thing.
Easter Baskets: I was never that into candy, so one of my favorite parts of the Easter basket was the fake plastic green “grass.” The only other place that you can get fake grass like this is with take-out sushi and domed NFL games, but I digress.
Anyway, good stuff! The grass is like green tinsel! Generally I would take the grass out of the basket and throw it at our cats, and then my dad would be like, “Oliver! The cats will choke to death on that stuff and DIE.” Ah, Easter was a fun time in the Miller household. Grade: B-plus
Ham: Why on earth do we serve ham for Easter? You got me, buddy. I’m Jewish, so the whole Easter thing is a bit of a mystery for me to start with. A better question is, why did my Jewish family even celebrate Easter, anyway? And there’s a simple answer to that. My family cannot resist any holiday that involves handing out treats or candy or presents of any kind. We would have handed out presents for Martin Luther King Day and Memorial Day if the simple issues of political tact and appropriateness hadn’t stopped us.
…So anyway… ham. What’s the story there? Does it have something do with Jesus? No, right? Because Jesus was the Lamb of God, and that’s why we don’t serve that. Eating God on God’s day would be… wrong. So ham, not lamb. …As far as I can tell, ham-on-Easter is just designed to be a total slap in the face to me and my brethren. “Hey… in case you haven’t figured this out yet… this reaallly isn’t a holiday for you. Get it, Kosher-boy?” Got it. Grade: D
Easter Chicks: Rabbits, lambs, ham… and now baby chickens. Easter is just basically a whole big Pu-Pu Platter of farm animals, now isn’t it? Anyway, some parents give their children “Easter Chicks” on Easter. This, as far as I can tell, is a really bad idea, and my family was always against it.
Easter Chicks die right away, and that might almost be an okay thing, considering. I’ve worked on a farm, and while baby chicks are cute, full-grown chickens seem to have the idea of “cute” implanted nowhere in their DNA. …But still, really, it’s a battle to the end between Easter Chicks and Goldfish Won at the School Fair for the title of “random household pet that will die immediately, possibly that same afternoon.” And that ain’t good. Ugh. Grade: F
Colored Eggs: I always got such a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment by making colored eggs via the time-tested “Paas” method. Granted, you’re just dipping hard-boiled eggs into a pool of food coloring using a little metal hoop, and there’s almost nothing that can go wrong with that, but still. You can make them multi-colored if you want! And okay, I just get a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment very easily. So sue me.
There was also another type of off-brand Easter Egg Decorating that was only found at the houses of… your less popular friends. In this method, you didn’t dye the eggs. Rather, you drew a grid on them using colored pencils. This was always depressing. “…Blurgh. Lookit, fellas! I’ve broken down the egg into its individual components, using the power of a grid. …Blurrgh.” Kind of nerdy, and very very depressing. Grade: A to D again; depending, once again.
Oliver Miller
Oliver Miller is a freelance writer living in Manhattan. ...
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