Christmas v. Easter

(This post is available in audio format  here on Youtube.) "Imagine this. It's Christmas Eve and you have to wrap all your own presents. And that's supposed to be a lot of fun. Even though your presents are all underwear and socks. You know that, because you're the person wrapping them. And on Christmas morning, your presents aren't under the tree. You have to go outside and root around in the bushes to find them before the neighbor kids snatch them up.

And when you tear off the wrapping paper, all you've got is underwear and itchy socks.

That's Easter. Am I wrong?

Also, imagine instead of Christmas parties and Advent calendars  and Christmas carols, you have to give up everything you like and eat a ton of fishsticks all through Advent. That's Easter.

Easter: the one day we celebrate man-made ecological disaster by hiding hard-boiled eggs around the neighborhood and then forgetting where, so they're like little IEDs.

HOLLOW!

Okay, you get some candy on Easter. Big deal. You get candy on Halloween, plus you get to dress up as a storm trooper or a slutty prison matron and you never know what kind of candy you'll get but you might score some of those excellent bite-size Snickers or some Skittles. Plus candy corn. And there's the frisson of stranger danger. Are those caramel apples laced with nose candy? On Easter you know exactly what candy you're going to get, down to the last jellybean. Licorice jelly beans and hard-boiled eggs go great together, don't you think? 

And your sister gets exactly the same amount of candy you do, so where are your bragging rights? Also, no candy corn. Those big chocolate Easter bunnies that you've been drooling over? They're hollow. 

HOLLOW!

That's Easter. 

Am I wrong?

On Easter you don't dress up like a storm trooper. You dress up like a grown-up. Itchy new clothes and shoes that pinch your toes. Who came up with this holiday?

At Christmas you get parades with giant balloon characters. At Easter you get parades with bonnets. Is it any wonder the Grinch never attempted to steal Easter?

Christmas is dependable. December 25th. You don't have to mark your calendar. From the age of three that date is burned in your memory. Easter? The first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. Oh, that's an easy one to recall. It's like they put Easter into the Federal Witness Protection Program after it turned state's evidence in the Tooth Fairy extortion case.

And Christmas has a "right jolly old elf." Easter has a rabbit with a hyper-active thyroid who secretly thinks he's a chicken. Kids sit on Santa's lap. Kids run screaming from giant rabbits.

There are hundreds of good Christmas movies, from It's a Wonderful Life to Bad Santa. There's even a whole channel that churns them out. An Easter movie?

1972's Night of the Lepus. Stuart Whitman and Rory Calhoun. Giant rabbits attack a small western town. I'm not kidding. 

And don't get me started on A Charlie Brown Christmas vs. It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown. I'm starting to think Linus has developmental issues. 

Maybe Easter was just a bad idea all along. It's like one of those movies about an Irish wake where it turns out somebody's stolen the body and then it's Weekend at Bernie's all over again. 

I'm not saying don't go to church. It's a Sunday, after all. Knock yourself out. Cook yourself a ham. Honey-glazed. Stick some pineapple slices on it. Hold the cloves so there's no choking hazard. Unless you're Jewish, in which case it's another excuse to eat Chinese. 

But Easter needs a complete make-over if it's ever going to get decent ratings. Swear off hard-boiled eggs. Ditch the bonnets. Get Mariah Carey out of mothballs. "All I Want for Easter Is You." Rethink the bunny. It can't be that hard. Work with me.

Am I wrong?