Saturday, April 23, 2011

The Ugliest Holiday

Like the blooming of jonquils, the reappearance of robins, and looming NFL player disputes, the emergence of pastel fashions, kaleidoscopic eggs, and a giant white rabbit who delivers candy to already sugar dependent kids can only mean one thing – Easter is on its way.

I confess – Easter is my least favorite holiday. In fact, Easter is to the holidays what the 70’s were to fashion and good taste.

Thanks to the widespread use of illegal narcotics during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, the young adults of the time known as “Hippies” who we now refer to as “stockbrokers,” were the main proponents of loud, garish colors, psychedelic patterns, obnoxious home decor, and exaggerated pant cuffs and shirt collars, all owing to their drug-distorted perception of style, hue, and proportion.

Drugs also played a critical role in the music of the day, influencing such legendary groups as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath (see heroin), the folksy, hallucinogenic musings of The Grateful Dead (see LSD), and eventually the vacuousness and superficiality of disco (see cocaine).

My point is the stylistic hideousness of that period in history can be traced directly to the abuse of illegal and/or controlled substances. Unfortunately, those persons who today embrace the foppery of Easter cannot point to drugs as an excuse.

Let’s face it – when it comes to over-the-top ugliness, Easter takes the proverbial lamb cake.

Whereas Thanksgiving is all about root vegetables, the harvest, turkeys, and Pilgrims inviting Indians to dinner then making them do the dishes, and Christmas all pine scented and cozy with wooden toys and sleigh rides and red bows topping luxury sedans, Easter is what happens when your three year old eats two pounds of jelly beans then pukes on the living room rug.

In the upper Midwest where I live, spring is the rainy part of winter that precedes three hot and humid weeks which occur just before the start of winter.

Spring is as ephemeral to Midwesterners as integrity is to government. More the stuff of legend than an actual tangible climatic event, I learned early on to doubt spring’s existence, considering it a mere trick nature plays to get us to believe the cold weather is finally coming to an end, which it never fully does.

Even so, when the calendar dictates, Midwestern men will dust off their seersucker suits and white patent leather shoes while their women don florid dresses and strap jaunty flower-basket-bonnets to their heads. Then with similarly costumed children in tow, they emerge from their underground burrows and parade about town in a futile attempt to impart some semblance of life and color unto the otherwise bleak landscape.

“Break out the kites, croquet mallets, and badminton racquets, kids! It’s springtime! And don’t forget your boots and mittens. ”

A primary reason Jews never accepted Christ as their savior is because they have too much self respect to denigrate themselves into celebrating such an obnoxiously vibrant holiday. It’s the same reason you never see Muslims dressing like popsicles or Native Americans worshiping white rabbits.

So this year as you dye your eggs, fill your gaudy baskets with polychromatic globs of sugar, and eat your deviled eggs, glazed ham, and hollow chocolate rabbits, pause for a moment to give thanks to those pioneering souls who weren’t afraid to get stoned out of their minds and put on orange paisley peasant shirts, bell bottom jeans, and tuck their long hair under leather headbands, all so you and I can sit back and admire this pastel infused season through our rose tinted shades.

Somebody pass the bong.

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