Yeah, I’m taking today off, and thus this very short post about Easter.

The first 3 1/2 months of the year have been a grind, and I’m sure many of you are looking forward to a 3-day weekend, or 4-day, if you consider Monday a holiday.  I’m looking at you, public service workers!

Here’s a quick story about what Easter was like growing up in a non-denominational family…

I have absolutely no clue what Easter is about.

I believe it’s when Jesus Christ died and was resurrected, but I have no idea why that’s an occasion to celebrate by eating chocolate eggs.  Sorry if that offended anybody, but really – what’s the connection?  And what’s with all the bunnies?

I grew up in a pretty un-religious family.

My mother was Jewish and my father was Catholic, and while we had a Christmas tree every single year, and lit the candles for Hanukkah, I wouldn’t say that either was really about religion.

My mother, who grew up Jewish with absolutely no clue what Easter was about, had been tasked with “coordinating” and “planning” Easter festivities in our household.

Christmas was pretty simple: pile presents under a tree.  Gotcha.

But Easter?  My mother had no clue what to do.

I don’t recall when it started; probably around the time when I learned to read, but I would wake up on Easter Sunday, and there would be a small bunny on the floor of my room (often looking right at me in a creepy way…), with a note in the shape of an egg, hand-written on coloured construction paper (sooooo….1980’s…), saying something like, “Good Morning, David.  Go look in the toaster.”

So I would.

I’d go look in the toaster, and I’d find another note, with the number “2” atop, saying, “Hi David, go look in your sock drawer.”

In my sock drawer, I’d find note “3,” which would read, “Hi David, go look under the bathroom sink.”

And so on, and so on, until I got to about #18 or #19, when I’d find a bounty of gifts!

I would usually know the gifts were about to be found when the note would refer to a large place, like, “Hi David, go look in the basement shower.”

That’s it!  That’s a large enough place to find a gigantic pile of gifts!

That’s right, folks, in the Jewish-Catholic family in which I was raised, we got Christmas presents on Easter!

The bounty would usually contain one gigantic chocolate Easter Bunny, which I would never be able to finish (think about ten days later when you’ve eaten down to the bunny’s foot, and it’s all slobbery), a handful of chocolate eggs, perhaps some new clothing or something that I was going to be given regardless, and then 2-3 decent presents, ie. a baseball bat, a Nintendo game, and a poster of my favourite hockey player for my bedroom wall.

I’m not going to lie – I felt pretty lucky, given that other kids in the neighbourhood were working an assembly line painting eggs, and I was out hitting tennis balls with my new bat.

But every family has their traditions, and ours were somewhat bizarre.

I look forward to having my own family very soon, and trying to make our holidays even weirder…

Happy Easter, everybody!

Take the day to rest and relax, and recharge for yet another short week upcoming!