Easter!! Mini Eggs, egg hunt, bunnies, family, crucifixion

My family literally does every cliche Easter thing there is. We hunt for eggs, eat solid chocolate bunnies, and my parents hide our Easter baskets for us to find. (Yes. I am 24 years-old and get an Easter basket. I live with a 9 year-old. I have to keep up appearances.) For dinner, we eat ham with chocolate pie for dessert.

 

My family's never really done anything out of the way special for easter, except maybe a dinner on Sunday. I'm probably just going to do my usual routine this weekend.

 

I've never really had any Easter traditions. Even when I was young we didn't have any. I only recall painting eggs once. I might have to start one this year though. Any good suggestions on a new fun tradition, ther than getting shit faced?

My girlfriend loves the white chocolate Reese's. I tried one and it just wasn't right with the white chocolate, then agian I'm probably just being racist somehow.

 

FOCUS:
Easter in Eastern Europe, specifically Easter Monday. You guys are going to love this. Girls - not so much.

If you are a girl, it involves decorating eggs in the days prior, traditionally like this, in preparation for the guys visiting on Easter Monday. You blow the inside of the egg out and rinse it, so the eggs and your artwork doesn't go to waste. So far so good.

The trouble starts when the men come. The tradition is to douse the girls with cold water and whip them with whips, so that they are healthy and happy and brisk. Yes, you read that correctly. Originally it started as holy water which was blessed at church on Easter Sunday, and then rapidly evolved into any water the dudes could get their hands on. As a girl, for the entire day, you get cold water thrown at you from buckets, sprayed at you from water guns, or you get thrown into a tub or the lake, usually multiple times. Also, you get chased around with whips, but that part isn't that bad, no guy really hits a girl hard. After this you have to reward the guys for their trouble with alcohol, food, a handpainted egg, and tying a ribbon on their whip. Or, nowadays, money, food and alcohol.. The guys get progressively more hammered as they go house to house, because they get offered drinks at every one.



Me and my sister would routinely got woken up by our giggling dad pouring cold water at us. At one point, my highschool classmates drove to my house and my parents, giggling, let them in to pour cold water on me as I was sleeping in my old ugly pajamas. Ah, memories.

It sounds terrible, and it can be, but it's also been fun a couple times, especially when the girls started dousing the dudes with water back. Or when the guy you had a crush on came and you got to hang out (after him chasing you down the street with a bucket that is). And I know guys always had a blast. However, I am so glad I have been out of the country for the past 7 Easters, because I used to hate this holiday (imagine that).

 

The pure Satanic evil of Cadbury cream eggs were all all-time vice. Goddamn those molar-melting demons.

 

One of the saddest days of my life was when the adults in my family decided that only the kids would be getting Easter eggs from now on. I want chocolate too, dammit!

Now I just buy my son more than he could possibly eat, and help him eat them. You know, to save him from getting fat and lazy and chocolatey and gooey. So from me he's got a gummy snake filled egg, one with a knockoff lego robot to put together and a Transformers tin filled with eggs, that is shaped like a car. I was eyeing off one of the massive Kinder Surprise eggs, but I did that for him last year. Might hit the shops on Tuesday for the clearance stock though.

 

Do the normal hunting of the baskets with the kids and ex nieces and nephews then turn them loose on their perspective mothers even though its my holiday and its only fair they get to see their entire families during the holidays. Lunch at mothers then a relaxing evening with netflix and my best friend.

 

Sorry kids...


I usually hang out with the relatives. We have Easter dinner, then we sit around and drink beer for the rest of the afternoon.

 

We could always do what the New Zealanders do for Easter...

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/out...d-great-easter-bunny-hunt-rabbit-hunting.html

I assume the rabbits down there are like this:

 

My family isn't religious so going to church was never part of Easter for us. Even so, my mom would still hide eggs and I would hunt around for them in the house, and she'd also hide a basket that had candy and some kind of stuffed bunny. Nothing huge. It was also a great source of amusement for my mom and dad because I SUCK at finding things. I am the last person to ask when you want to find something in the house. They would sit back and giggle to themselves as I wandered around the house passing eggs dozens of times. When I was little eventually they would take pity on me and start playing hot and cold so I wouldn't feel like too much of a loser but when I got older they stopped doing that and just kept laughing as I rolled my eyes and missed eggs in hilariously obvious places. I don't blame them I have no doubt I looked ridiculous. There may be some psychological scarring that I haven't run into yet so we'll see.

Although I do think my mom is starting to lose her mind slightly towards my more eccentric family members because last year she brought me a stuffed rabbit that when you pressed its hand it bounced, sang and flopped its ears. I still have it because it drives my cats crazy and they will attack it as soon as the ears start going.

 

My mother's church are the laziest fucking Catholics in the history of Catholicism. First they had "midnight Mass" at 10 PM instead of midnight for Christmas Eve, and now they've moved their primary Easter weekend mass to Saturday evening. Add this to the fact that no one sings at mass and everyone look like fucking slobs.

I'm personally very nonreligious, but if you're going to do it, do it right. These Catholics suck at Catholicism.

 

Sounds like the church we went to when I was a kid. The Saturday night mass in the summer was like 20 minutes. There was no sermon, they skipped some songs and I swear nobody went to communion because they wanted out. People were there in shorts and t-shirts.

Jim Gaffigan's view on Easter always makes me laugh

 

A lot of churches start midnight mass at 10 or 10:30--I think the idea is for the service to end at or shortly after midnight, not necessarily start then.

Of course, in the Toboggan household, my parents say they want to go and then pass out by 7 pm while I watch Bad Santa/Denis Leary's Merry Fuckin' Christmas/the Always Sunny Christmas special with my dog (I am somewhat religious but I'm not the old guy from Home Alone and going to mass by yourself on Christmas Eve is the most depressing thing ever so I don't go).

Easter is usually the one day of the year I consistently do go to mass, although I didn't today. When I was in school my parents would usually come up and visit over Easter weekend and we'd go to the mass on campus, which was pretty nice. My junior year I had a huge black eye because I'd gotten retardedly drunk at an NCAA tournament hockey game a couple nights earlier and fell down over about 5 rows of seats trying to stand up to celebrate a goal, ending up face planting on someone's armrest. My mom got all uptight about it until I pointed out the fact that I probably wasn't the first person to ever show up to a Sunday mass (Easter notwithstanding) at an Irish Catholic church in Boston sporting a shiner.

 

Jesus Fucking Christ it's a beautiful day outside (appropriate?). Heading up to the in-laws for beer, boccie, and leg o' lamb. I don't care for Easter much, but it's important to my wife's family and they can cook their ass off and they buy me 30 packs of Natural Light...so, it's growin' on me.

 

Quoted for truth, it was all fog and rain earlier this morning, but it cleared up fucking FAST. Went downstairs, visited the new calf and consoled the soon to be mom that has been loud as fuck.

 

Pretended to sleep in so I didn't have to go to church with my family. I am a terrible son.

I'm undecided on religion and spirituality and whatnot, but I do know one thing: I hate going to church.

 

If "The Prodigal Son" taught us anything, it's that doing what you're told is fucking stupid.

 

this.
My mom tried the guilt thing this morning, but......
considering I was laying on the air mattress in the middle of her kitchen wearing the dress I wore to the winery last night and a blanket wrapped around my bottom half, I had a fairly decent argument for staying in bed.


I don't despise religion. Honestly, I've followed a Christian belief system most of my life, but my mom's brand of Christianity pisses me off to the point I can't keep my mouth shut. If she wants to enjoy an Easter service in her church, it's best I don't attend. Judgmental, hypocritical, do as I say not as I do, self righteous Christians make my face twitch. I question all of it, and I don't accept "Because the Bible says so..." for her or her preacher's answers. Needless to say, these days I'm a bit more agnostic than Christian.

But I did make the peanut butter eggs this morning.

 

I don't do church and neither does anyone else in the immediate family. My wife likes to get 5 dollars in change for each kid that will be here, divides it up and puts it into plastic eggs, hides them out side and does this funky Simon says thing, where she makes them do the most humiliating ridiculous things in order to get the eggs. Things like, "hop on one foot to the shed and cluck like a chicken and look to your right" She thinks it's hysterical and it actually is. Other than that we cook a big hunk of ham and other assorted goodies and eat. A lot. If not for the food, Easter would be a non-holiday as far as I'm concerned. I work weekends so it sucks to begin with and I see it as just another excuse to spend a lot of money on crap.