Well, it's Easter, a holiday that falls on a Sunday, so you're even less likely to be reading this than usual. In fact, I'll bet no one's reading this but me. I am all alone. I could take off my pants and you wouldn't even know it. Ahhh. Much more comfortable.
Not being Christians, Easter isn't a big day for us. It's funny how many people ask us if we celebrate Easter anyway. You know, for Schuyler. And I suppose it's a fair question, since we celebrate Christmas, or at least the holiday season. (Now that I'm not in retail, it's going to be harder to wage the War on Christmas with my insidious "Happy holidays" greeting.)
I guess the big difference is that Christmas celebrates hope and peace and harmony and good stuff that even us heathens can get behind. Easter's harder to explain. "Yeah, we killed Jesus, but he didn't hold it against us, and then he turned into a zombie, the Greatest Zombie of All, and so we play with rabbits and chickens and eat chocolate eggs. Any questions?"
I suppose we could make it about the beginning of spring, but in Texas, that happens in February. Springtime in Texas means that the hot steering wheel starts to make you cry again.
So yeah, it's complicated being an agnostic at Easter, but that doesn't mean the rest of you can't have a fun day. Julie works today, so I'll spend the day with Schuyler, probably playing with the baby ducks outside (a very Easterly behavior) or watching King Kong again, which is only like Easter in that we've watched it like seventy times since we got it, so it's sort of like he keeps getting resurrected.
Anyway, whether you are celebrating the beginning of spring or the day when Christ rolled back the stone, stepped out and saw his shadow (Damn, another six weeks of winter!), I hope you have a nice day today. It's the one day of the year you can probably wear pastels without getting your ass kicked and your lunch money stolen, although really, why take that chance?
(Note: If you were offended by this entry, I really do apologize. I'm just having a little fun. If it makes you feel better, imagine me in the Lake of Fire, drinking Diet Coke and listening to conservative talk radio for all eternity. Welcome to Hell, here's your accordion...)
Glad to hear that your spring has sprung -- I'm coming down to Austin in 2 weeks for a conference.
ReplyDeleteHappy Easter Chubbin' n fam!
If you have not yet done so, there's an essay by David Sedaris you may enjoy, which includes his experiences in a Conversational French language class in Paris; the teacher was trying to discuss holidays, and one of the students was from Morocco and didn't know what Easter was. Sedaris then relates the other students' attempts to explain to her in their broken French what Easter was about.
ReplyDeleteUsually I end up breaking into giggles about the time he quotes one student as saying "The Jesus be on two morsels of lumber."
Kim
But ... What about the CANDY?
ReplyDeleteAnd the pretty new easter dress?
And coloring the eggs and ending up with dye on your fingers?
Yeah, sorry, I'm a bit agnostic too, though I am going to darken a church door later this morning (early childhood training). But I love the holiday traditions!
Oh well, enjoy the ducks!
Leave your pants on.
ReplyDeleteYou've got plenty of company...even on a Sunday!
Happy Easter.
Wob, not at all offended by the entry as a person who actually believes all that jesus weirdness... I thought it was funny and kind of summed up the discussions of the past week in our house. I especially loved how you can't really make it about spring because it is already summer where you are.
ReplyDeleteWe skipped church because EVERYone shows up on Easter and it is crowded with people who just like to dress up once a year and show up and their kids don't get it and the whine and scream the whole time and it is just a pain.
Instead, we're going geocaching.
And then we'll come home and have a bonfire.
Happy Sunday to you -- feed some duckies and play with some rats, and kick back and enjoy yourself. Maybe you can do some geocaching too.
As for the title -- I totally remember that commercial, and said that out loud to myself as I put Cadbury Creme Eggs in the baskets at 11pm last night. I hadn't thought of that in about 10 years, and here are 2 references in less than 12 hours.
whee!
oh -- that david sedaris story is a drop dead riot. It is one of my favorite sedaris tales. A must read for anyone.
ReplyDelete"Yeah, we killed Jesus, but he didn't hold it against us, and then he turned into a zombie, the Greatest Zombie of All, and so we play with rabbits and chickens and eat chocolate eggs. Any questions?"
ReplyDeleteFunniest thing I've read about this particular holiday. I read it to my family and we got a good giggle out of it. Now pardon me while I go off to eat some Matzo.
I don't supposed you, or the chubbin, would be interested in redyeing her hair a lovely, say, pastel purple, would you? Sort of as an homage to the Easter bonnet, only cooler?
ReplyDeleteI've been resoundingly beaten to the punch here, but the Sedaris essay, called "Jesus Shaves," is absolutely sidesplitting. You may just end up making it your family's annual Easter reading tradition. It's in his book Me Talk Pretty One Day.
ReplyDeleteEvery easter I call my two kids, my mom and dad and my sister, and say thanks easter bunny bock bock, it makes them crazy.....lol!
ReplyDeletePS Zombie Jesus weekend, ha! I love it.
Of course there are people around even on a sunday, what'd you think?
Oh, and easter has the best candy, reeses white chocolate easter eggs, mmm.
ReplyDeleteI am not offended and would never imagine you dancing in the lake of fire....maybe dancing with a coke with your pants off (hey you mentioned it first) but definitely not in the lake of fire!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, good for you for being honest about your beliefs. My Mama said honesty is a good policy!
Myself here, I'm going to church. I won't eat candy but my kids will. We painted eggs but don't do Easter bunnies. I'll dress up but definitely won't wear anything remotely pastel. Hey have you come to my blog and seen my hair?! I can't wear pastel with that shocking red streak!!!
Have a great day with Schuyler. I can imagine you two now....Schuyler with the pink bike helmet. And you two in the grass holding hands with the duckies @ your feet...I'll just have to wait for the photos!
P.S. And never assume that we're not here waiting, watching for more words from the GR8T Robb-0!
HA! "the Greatest Zombie of All"!!!
ReplyDeleteHadn't thought of it that way before! Awesome. That'll get me through the day, now...
I read but don't comment much, if at all?
ReplyDeleteBut, it's Easter Sunday and I read your post. We don't do Easter here either. Can't even celebrate spring because I'm in the midwest and we're dreary and freezing today. So, we're celebrating the fact that we are both off work on a Sunday, which almost never happens. Our celebration includes not having gotten out of pajamas yet, DVR'd movies, lots of coffee and leftover Chinese food. Not your typical Easter, but we're likin' it so far.
That what very funny.
ReplyDeleteHappy Spring!
i'm not offended at all, i think it's funny.
ReplyDeleteTwo years ago, a friend of mine's son was in a daycare that was run by a Christian Church. They'd decided on that daycare because it was what they could afford and because the staff seemed genuinely knowledgeable and caring, the facilities good, etc. But around Easter time, she found herself appalled by the way they were dwelling on the violence and gore of Easter. She was even more appalled that her son thought the gore and violence was actually kind of cool (Zombie Jesus is a draw, there's no denying it) and wanted to tell her about all the things that had been done to Jesus over and over again.
ReplyDeleteAfter the umpteenth retelling, her son realized that he needed to give his audience more, so he said, "And after they nailed JESUS up, do you know what they did? They nailed up the DONKEY he rode in on!"
My dad called and said he was going to Easter services. I told him I was sleeping in. He said he wished he could sleep in. Pain, not church is preventing it.
ReplyDeleteWe went to our club's gym (closed Christmas Day and New Year's Day only) and were not bothered by too many other people. We went to BookStop (which opened late and is a baby monolith) and bought another book we won't find time to read. We would have gone to Central Market but it is CLOSED ALL DAY. Hrmmph. Those Baptists. We went to Randall's instead. We bought two cartons of eggs because they were on sale but we are going to eat them.
I wonder what happens after we die, but no amount of imagination has allowed me to believe in resurrection and hell. I will, as the Iris DeMent song says 'let the mystery be.' And really without faith, what else can I do?
Thanks for writing on Easter. When I clicked over I was thinking 'you know, Rob is the best thing on the WEB.'
I'm totally offended.
ReplyDeleteNo wait, not offended, I mean *amused*.
No Easter celebrations around here, unless you count rolling out of bed in pastel-colored pajamas and playing video games until noon, shirking dish-washing-duties again on account of the 'holiday'.
--scarydevilpants@peoplepc.com
Wow, I thought my brother and I were the only people who still remembered that commercial!!!! We still call each other and say it every Easter too, and we're both in our thirties. Good times. :)
ReplyDeleteWhat I want to know is, why is Good Friday called 'Good' Friday? Couldn't have been very good for the three guys on the crosses.
ReplyDeleteOrganized religion confuses me so...
No Easter here either. I'm enjoying a quiet Sunday. Here in heathen California I didn't even see anyone going to church, everone's out jogging, getting coffee, etc. The puggle got into a dog fight when I let her out to pee in the early AM and came home with a big gash on her head. I tried to find an open vet, but since she is playing around and eating well, and it appears to be a fairly shallow wound, I decided to clean it and let it go. That's about it. Easters are always quiet for me. That's cool. Enjoy yourself...
ReplyDeleteI read the Sedaris this morning. Holy crap, that was funny.
ReplyDeleteHa HA, see, we WERE reading today! Some of the rest of us also don't go big on the Easter AND get to work. Life is so special this way.
ReplyDeleteI'm also happy I'm not alone in the "Jesus = groundhog" joke-making. It's a classic that just . . . gets . . . funnier. Seriously.
Even better than reading the Sedaris is hearing him read it. I've listened to that bit from Me Talk Pretty One Day at least twenty times and it never fails to make me laugh until I cry.
ReplyDeleteOkay, your title made me laugh, because that was one of my favorite commercials EVER (I bet most people didn't even get the reference, though I'm too lazy to read all the comments to verify that fact).
ReplyDeleteJust YESTERDAY when my brother and his wife were here to give the kids their Easter goodies, I said to my brother just before he left, "Thanks Easter Bunny! Bock Bock!" and he totally laughed and was all, "I remember that commercial!"
And as a total side note, my brother was saying there's this comedian he loves (can't remember his name right now) who was saying, "You know, what do colored eggs have to do with the death of Jesus?" And he could just picture someone else sitting there going, "Oh, don't worry... there's gonna be a bunny."
You're not the only one, Rob. I'm looking forward to explaining to my niece how the church co-opted the pagan vernal equinox celebrations to get more people in the pews to get their money. And then I'm going to tell her why they started using incense.
ReplyDeleteMaybe next year, though. This year she's only 1, and she tasted chocolate for the first time on Sunday. From her reaction, heaven is a cheap chocolate bunny ear. And soft grass to sit in.
Mine, too, now that I think about it.
As we eat of the chocolate next year, I think we will continue the French tradition, as Sedaris notes, that "chocolate is brought by the big bell that flies in from Rome." It's as good an explanation as anything.
Ha! I wished everyone a happy zombie jesus day on my site too and I was a little concerned people might be offended, but as it turns out, not so much. And the Sedaris essay that anon. references is in Me Talk Pretty One Day definitely worth a read if you haven't.
ReplyDelete...the day when Christ rolled back the stone, stepped out and saw his shadow (Damn, another six weeks of winter!)
ReplyDeleteI'm a youth counselor at my church. We gave our kids an Easter quiz and this was one of the possible choices for the question about how Jesus got out of the tomb. So no, I'm not at all offended.
Except for the fact that I now have to think about a shoe fetishist and your chucks. Ew.
I was at Six flags in arlington this weekend, and apparently, it was Christian Youth Weekend. I really wanted to go up to some kid and say "Sorry my people killed your saviour. My bad. No hard feelings though, right? Happy Easter!"
ReplyDeleteWell, let's see. I'm definitely in the minority here. I find the whole 'zombie' thing incredibly offensive. And I'm no hard-ass Christian. Just a mom doing her best to raise children in troubling times. It's one thing when your religion doesn't celebrate the holiday. It's quite another to mock it.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, I suspect Christianity will get over it somehow.
ReplyDeleteWe're all raising our kids in a rough world. Not sure what that has to do with anything here.
"Thanks, Eastah Bunny, bock bock!" is how my family greets each other every spring. That, if nothing else, is sacred.
ReplyDeleteMy kids spent the day riding the 'coasters at King's Dominion. There's a "Christ is Risen..falling...risen again" joke in there somewhere.
"Welcome to Hell -- here's your accordion" -- Oh my god. There's another person out there familiar with The Lilac Time?
ReplyDelete"Springtime in Texas means that the hot steering wheel starts to make you cry again."
ReplyDeleteThat is the funniest thing I've read in a long time...mostly because I know it's true. Please hand me a Kleenex.
I wouldn't presume to imagine anyone in Hell, and it's kind of distressing to contemplate that the image of mainstream Christianity is such that it's perceived as the province of people who enjoy vengeful afterlife fantasies.
ReplyDeleteThat said, it's even more distressing to read something like: "Easter's harder to explain. 'Yeah, we killed Jesus, but he didn't hold it against us, and then he turned into a zombie, the Greatest Zombie of All, and so we play with rabbits and chickens and eat chocolate eggs. Any questions?'"
What's wrong with explaining Easter as "the central celebration of the christian faith, where christians recommit to their belief that the son of God died and was resurrected"? An explanation like that doesn't pass judgment on said belief (which, yes, can seem freaky and morbid to non-christians), but it illuminates it for a person who will not be growing up in that culture.
It also allows you to explain that yes, over time, Christianity co-opted several other religious rites and symbols (the egg, for example, and the shifting of the name from Festa Paschalia to Easter, which is a co-opting of Saxon goddess of spring Oestre), and isn't it interesting how christianity's maintained its cultural robustness by co-opting other cultural hallmarks as well?
(Although it should be noted: the crucifixion and resurrection have ALWAYS been associated with spring. After all, Easter's associated with Passover, which has always been linked to the vernal moon cycle.)
I'm not saying Christianity should be off-limits to comedy (I back the South Park guys when they argue that hurt feelings never justify censorship, and either everything's up for grabs or nothing is). I realize that one of the side effects of being a dominant cultural force is that it's a ripe target for criticism, dissent and mockery.
And I get that people don't share beliefs. What I don't get is why that plurality of beliefs justifies treating creeds that aren't your own -- or, to be specific in this case, a most sacred and holy celebration in a specific creed -- with such casual contempt.
Cheerfully admitting I'm coming off like a humorless pearl-clutcher on this one,
Lisa