Deck the Halls with...Chicks and Bunnies?

Easter has the worst decorations.

Bunnies and foofy baskets? Come ON! Who came up with this? I guess I just don't see the connection between the religious origin of Easter, and the currently-observed pagan ritual. Not that there has to be a connection, really. We are, after all, a commercial society. Anything that spurs consumerism qualifies as a religious experience (for the merchandisers, at least.)

But bunnies?

I went out today on a special mission - to find appropriate house decorations to get my children into the spirit of the occasion (the shallow pagan commercialized spirit, I should say.) And I found not one single item that I would be caught dead festooning my property with, aside from the hood ornament of the land yacht that took my parking spot.

(I had my blinker on! Witch.)

Really, there's not much in the way of home decorations to underscore the occasion. You can put a big giant plastic egg in your yard, or put some of those static-cling window cartoons up. But it's not very satisfying.

Exterior Christmas lights thinly masqueraded with egg-shades? I think not.

Bunny driveway reflectors? You've got to be kidding.

A giant cross in the front yard? Might be misinterpreted, especially if flammable.

Do you see my point?

Another problem I have with the whole Easter thing is that just last week I finally got rid of the last of the Halloween loot. I don't need MORE of that stuff floating around the house, getting smeared on my sofas.

Though I have to secretly confess I LIKE my egg salad with multi-colored seepage.

Luckily, Mr. Bunny tends to leave non-edibles at my house. So far he has gotten away with this, on account of the children are still too young to compare notes at school. Mr. B. leaves bathing suits and sunglasses. And a big (solid!) chocolate bunny for Mom, or he's hasenpfeffer. None of that Easter Lily nonsense is tolerated in my house.

We have the obligatory egg hunt. Which is anticlimactic, because by the time it's Easter, the kids have participated in roughly 9000 holiday-ramp-up egg hunts, and have passed out from sugar shock several dozen times. This is why it's a really good idea to use PLASTIC eggs on the big day. Because when the kids lose interest, leaving half of the eggs to be excavated by future archaeologists, you're not forced to move away because the smell.

One year, Mr. B. bought 24 matchbox cars to fill plastic eggs, such was his desperation to NOT fill the house with sweets that year (because Mrs. B. was wrestling with those last 10 baby pounds, and tended toward the cranky side whenever food made an appearance.) Only to discover, too late, that matchbox cars do not fit inside plastic eggs…

But of course, rabbits are not known for their intellect.

There's that horrible fake plastic basket-grass (now available in a rainbow of colors to burn out your vacuum motor as cheerfully as possible.) I still have remnant strands of this stuff clinging to furniture legs - from three years ago when I stopped using it. It's like ivy.

I guess I just don't get the Easter letdown. It's like the holiday was never adequately thought out in the first place. Consider: Easter is in the top two religious holidays for the Christian contingent. It officially ranks second, after the biggie (Christmas.)

I don't know why.

EVERYBODY has a birthday. How many people rise from the grave to save all of humanity, for Pete's sake? Personally, I'd think that it ought to rank FIRST on said Christian scale of importance, however based on my in-depth socio-scientific research consisting of counting dedicated aisles in the average department store, Easter trails Christmas at a pitiful 729 to 1.

With absolutely NO decent decorations.
Blasphemy.