You know, I was thinking of my grandmother today. Don’t know why, but I do remember her talking
to me once when I was a child. Well, a
few times really, but this particular time, it was just before Easter and I was
about 5. “Katie, if you are very good
and eat up all your vegetables, do you know what will happen on Easter Sunday
morning?” I glanced up from my biography
of Churchill and replied in the negative.
I remember her smiling then and giving me a big
huggly-wuggly-snuggly and confiding that if the above conditions were fully
satisfied and if I tried to be that rarest of things – a good girl, a giant
rabbit would hop into my bedroom on said Easter Sunday morning and give me a
large egg made out of chocolate.
She then grinned and nodded wisely. And I can clearly remember thinking, as I
stared at her loving face, how absolutely great it will be when I am a grown-up
because then I too will be able to take powerful hallucinogenic drugs just like
her.
The Easter Bunny? The WHAT?
It’s like Santa.
Tell me – Santa - how did HE ever catch on? Wouldn’t any healthy society have him locked
up immediately? I mean, just hang on one
second and let me get this straight. An
ancient, overweight Norwegian alcoholic in a red suit and kinky boots, with no
visible means of support despite his massive wealth, is going to slither down
my chimney in the middle of the night and creep into my bedroom to fill my
stocking?
I have a gun and I’m waiting, fatboy!
By the way, this Christmas when you see an image of the
Bethlehem manger, have a good long hard look at it. It’s an icon of the supposedly perfect
family. OK, so it doesn’t stand up to
even basic scrutiny. She’s an unmarried
mother from a religious minority, he’s a semi-skilled migrant labourer with
poor employment prospects. And Jesus
Christ, that cute little kid is going to grow up to wander around the desert in
a frock, cause enormous civil disturbance, vandalize a temple and come into
serious conflict with the law before being arrested, tortured and nailed to a
tree. I mean they’re not exactly the
Waltons, are they?
Something in our culture has gone terribly wrong when we
celebrate Easter by inventing a character which even John Lennon in the post
Sgt Pepper years, would have found a tad on the weirdo side.
Honestly, the role models we give kids
today. And we wonder why they grow up
robbing cars.