Easter is NOT My Favorite Holiday

Easter is over but its still on my mind. It's not my favorite holiday. There are a few reasons for this. Some, I haven't been able to fully understand myself. I'm still working on myself after all. While I am a pretty damn self-aware person, there are still some things I have yet to discover about myself. I find that exciting though because even in my 40's I can still surprise myself.

So yeah, Easter has never really been my thing. I may have finally figured out at least two reasons for it. The first one related to the Easter Bunny. When I was a kid I had a pet rabbit. I was about 6 I think. Those years sort of blur together. It was a long time ago. Anyway, I don't remember my age where I actually met the Easter Bunny. I know I was younger than 6. The biggest thing about that meeting (and why I remember it in the first place) was that the giant bunny terrified me.

Yep, that's right a giant Rabbit with big scary eyes and a bow tie around his neck scared the shit out of me and I remember crying. Here is another memory for ya: Again, not sure how old I was but I remember a nightmare. It is a nightmare that I will probably remember long after I have forgotten my own name.

The nightmare didn't just have the giant bunny but also a giant mean looking dog, a giant owl, and water bugs ( I have no idea where the owl and bugs came from). The dog was there for a reason. I had just lost my first dog - stolen out of my back yard over night by some dog fighter assholes. That's another story for another time.

Back to my nightmare. So these giants animals who were, at the time, way bigger than me, chased me around my house in the middle of a stormy night. Oh yeah, it was raining outside. I remember trying to wake my mother up but she wouldn't budge. Then I went into my grandmother's room (that's where I saw the water bugs). I'm not going to go further into this nightmare because it just occurred to me that I might be able to make a short story out of this. Why not? It's actually an interesting tale.

On to the second reason I am not a fan of Easter. The movie, King of Kings. From the time I was 7 1/2 I grew up in a very strict Roman Catholic home. Every Christmas we would watch a children's Christmas movie about the birth of Jesus Christ. Those were fine. They were children's movies and one had a cute donkey in it.

But on Easter, there were no children's movies. At least none that I had seen way back in the early 80's. So my Aunt decided to make us watch a movie called King of Kings. I believe it was the 50's version. It was an old movie and didn't hold much back in the way that Jesus was tortured before being forced to walk with a heavy ass cross on his back up a long steep hill, only to be nailed to the damned thing.

The whole process was absolutely brutal for a young one to watch. Maybe there was more to it than that. I had just come out of hell (and I do mean hell on Earth) at my father's house. I was already a traumatized kid just trying to survive in a world where the adults responsible for my care could not be trusted.

They were not safe adults. So I spent my entire childhood and teen years in pure survival mode. Now that I think back on it, Survival mode was all I knew until my 30's.

Anyway, back to what I am trying to say here. Yes, I know the teachings of the bible. I grew up in a strict religious home and went to a Southern Baptist Church. Yeah, I'm familiar with the book.

It doesn't change the fact that my young self watched a man, who was supposed to be this super important person to everyone in the world, be tortured to death and I am supposed to be happy about it? I'm supposed to rejoice in his death because the adults around me tell me to? He died for our sins, blah, blah, blah? I don't think so.

I have a few -ISSUES- with religion if you can't tell. I have much more to say on the matter too but that will be another time. I want to get to some positive thoughts here before I end this post.

Last year sucked! 2020 was a terrible year for EVERYONE! But it also helped put some things into perspective. Like this year, even though my sons are teenagers - one is an adult - they both wanted Easter baskets. It had everything to do with last year not doing anything because of COVID.

And that's when it dawned on me: We don't have to celebrate the death of a man was tortured to death ( and yes, I know we are supposed to celebrate his resurrection but damn it, the torture stuck with me). My boys and I are looking at Easter now as the official start of Spring. While Spring technically starts in March, it doesn't actually warm up like Spring until about April so here we are.

Easter is now a time in my family to bring in Spring. The beginning of the new. That's so much nicer and lovelier.

Thanks for reading!