Easter has always been my least favorite holiday. As a child, looking for the colored eggs was kind of fun, but I never cared for hard boiled eggs much, as food, and a small bit of chocolate didn’t really make up for it. It wasn’t anywhere near as cool as Hallowe’en. Then, we had to get dresse up, and go to Easter dinner at our Aunt Louise’s house, which we considered the most boring place in the universe, although we’d usually, after dinner, be allowed to walk down to the ‘river’ (it was a creek) and play.
Easter in the Czech Republic isn’t any better. People get a lot more artistic with the eggs, and the Easter trees look colorful, but I’m expected to go with the family up to the cottage, just because it’s one of the big holidays, and I consider that now to be the most boring place on Earth. And I consider the tradition with the whips to be stupid. I feel like maybe I’m a bad parent, because I just let Sam and Isabel deal with that experience with their Mom and grandparents, and I stay upstairs with a book.
When I first arrived, the tradition with the whips just seemed like something somebody had made up, like in a bad, comedy movie stereotype of primitive and isolated cultures. Then, I accepted the explanation that it was a harmless tradition, a little bit of fun. Sure, some feminists get bent out of shape, but they have no sense of humor about anything. Then, I noticed that some guys were just way too into it. There are guys whose eyes light up at the chance to whip a woman, and who hit too hard, and with too much relish.
It’s like people who say “The Confederate Flag ain’t racist. It’s tradition, it’s our heritage.” More often than not, you’ll find they are racist.
I like Spring. I like Beltane, and Solstice Celebrations, and Čarodějnice, and fun holidays like that, but Easter I could live without.
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