Natalie Whatley

I got a harebrained idea and decided to get on the Easter Bunny’s trail and work backwards to see just where he came from. I backtracked and burrowed deep. My mind is now scrambled.  If any of you are experts and spot an error, feel free to set me straight and know I tried to get it right. I’m like a moth to a flame when it comes to topics where conflicting information abounds.

To start off I learned that the Easter Bunny started out as the Easter Hare. By strict definition a hare cannot be a bunny as a bunny is a baby rabbit. Rabbits are not hares; there are differences. If you want to chase your own cotton-picking tail on the subject and how it relates, have at it. It’s a little confusing, but most agree the change to “bunny” in our modern times probably occurred because that sounded cuter and most people don’t realize rabbits and hares are not one in the same. It’s all about slick marketing.

At first glance, it appears the egg-laying bunny (I’ll get to that) has nothing to do with the Biblically-based holiday. But like many other parts of our culture, it all dates back to pre-Christian mythology somewhat melding with Christian celebrations and then morphing into one of our heavily-marketed special days. I know I make that sound not so warm and bunny fuzzy; I’m a capitalist with a more than slight disdain for commercialization. Yes, it’s a conundrum being me.

The beginnings of what we now see as Easter festivities started in 13^th century Germany where feasts were held in honor of the Vernal Equinox – the beginning of spring. Of course rabbits were a great symbol of fertility and spring renewal. Plus, legend has it that German mythological goddess Ostara (Anglo-Saxon name Eostre) had a hare (Lepus) as a consort (just repeating what I read, folks). She became angry with Lepus and cast him into the heavens . . . where he became the constellation Lepus the Hare at the feet of Orion.

At some point Ostara’s anger dimmed and she gave Lepus the gift of laying eggs once a year. (Ok, I can be creative, but even I couldn’t make this stuff up!) Eventually, Christianity adopted this same time of year to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ where renewal and new life were also central themes. Traditions that had been in place prior became part of the Resurrection celebration.   

In 1680 the first published story appeared about a rabbit laying eggs and hiding them in a garden. And then, all of this lore was brought to what is now the United States by German immigrants settled in Pennsylvania Dutch areas in the 1800s. Those children had a firmly held tradition of making nests  out of bonnets and caps hidden in their homes and gardens for the “Osterhas” (that’s German for Easter Hare) to lay his colorful eggs.

As you can surely imagine, those “nests” morphed into our modern-day Easter baskets where generally children leave their own colored eggs atop plastic grass to be swapped for candy, treats, and other small gifts.  

No matter from which angle any of it is traced back, it’s all celebratory of new life and new beginnings. And that’s eggstra special!  Happy Easter!

© 2011 Natalie Whatley

I’d like to know what’s in your Easter basket. Allow me to eggs-plain. Easter-basket favorites eggs-pose personality traits. If you’re off on an eggs-cursion to hide yours, please don’t eggs-clude yourself from the fun. Don’t have an Easter basket?  Get one, or for entertainment’s sake pretend one eggs-ists and eggs-amine its contents before reading further. Determine which item you like best, and I’ll eggs-plore your psyche. It’ll be egg-citing!

Are jelly beans eggs-emplary in your opinion? Your hard eggs-terior shell houses firm but sugary resolve. If you like run-of-the-mill beans, you’re an unfussy, simple sort –easy to please and easy going.  If eggs-otic gourmet flavors fall more in line with your eggs-pectations, you enjoy the eggs-travagant things. But, if you’re one of those who uses the “recipes” on the back of the bag to create eggs-orbitant concoctions for your discerning palate: well, there’s an old coffee-shop joke about how you can tell how big of a pain in the backside someone is by how many descriptive words it takes to make the order. Same goes for you if the taste you eggs-pect involves mixing more than two beans. Do you ask the family to gather the black-licorice ones and save them for you?  You eggs-hibit math-book-like qualities  . . . you got problems! Those are eggs-tremely yucky!

Like chocolate bunnies?  White chocolate variety?  While it appears you’re an eggs-alted one, you’re actually quite the renegade because white chocolate is not chocolate at all. Milk chocolate bunny?  You eggs-ude sweet, smooth ways while being somewhat of a conformist eggs-ample.  Dark chocolate? It’s all the eggs-tolled health rage right now. You’re probably a smug health nut who eggs-ercises and makes others feel guilty for eggs-posing their bodies to the more impure forms. But here’s the real eggs-amination: Do you bite off the ears first? Freud would say you feel as if others don’t really hear you eggs-press yourself. Then there’s the question of hollow versus solid. Those eggs-pound on themselves. Where else could you get such, ineggs-pensive, eggs-pert psycho-analysis?

People who like Peeps egg-cel on a psychological level, but are a little fluffy in the head. And since eating those cause eggs-treme sugar concentrations in your blood, mosquitoes are eggs-hilarated by you. (Buy some Peeps on clearance after Easter and feed them to everyone else at this summer’s family barbecue. The bugs will eggs-clude your less-sweet offering.)

This year, I saw edible Easter grass in stores.  If you’re enjoying some of that (and I can’t imagine it tastes any better than the real thing), then I can only eggs-trapolate that you have a deep-seated desire to eggs-ist in the bovine realm. Moo!

If robin’s eggs are eggs-actly what you crave, you look tough on the outside, but crumble to powder when another human eggs-acts pressure.

Real, hard-boiled eggs or plastic? Ornate dye jobs or a quick dunk? Decals or no? Weird sayings in wax crayon? Don’t like all your eggs in one basket? Those type of “issues” eggs-ceed my previously eggs-aggerated capabilities. Maybe you should seek professional help.

Whew!  I’m eggs-hausted, and I bet you’re ready to eggs-coriate me. I have an egg-cellent eggs-cuse for my eggs-asperating behavior: Just call me Humpty Dumpty. And you can eggs-hale because what I found while eggs-cavating your basket was lost in the eggs-plosion.  Happy Easter!

© 2009 Natalie Whatley

Happy Easter, Baytown! 

In an effort to put together something coherent and clever for your Easter- Sunday perusal, I set out researching Easter-y things.  I came out on the other side of two hours, with a strange conglomeration of information, no direction whatsoever, and feeling a bit stressed. I strive to maintain some standards, and to say I wasn’t ”feeling it” this week would be an understatement.  

With the pollen count reaching infinity, I’ve been in a Benadryl-induced fog for well over a week.  I also feel compelled to remind you the kids are out of school, and Jeff’s off from work for spring break; short of locking myself in the bathroom, I haven’t had much alone time to work on my weekly offering. I’m certain I’ll look back on this article, and say, “What was I thinking?” Then I’ll remind myself that I wasn’t. I couldn’t. Clear as mud, right?  Here goes.

I know I’m not alone in thinking Easter seemed to come early this year; it did.  Since the middle ages, Easter has been observed on the first Sunday after the first full moon that occurs on, or before March 21^st.  Given that, the earliest possible date for Easter is March 22^nd. Easter hasn’t fallen on that date since 1818, and won’t do so again, until the year 2285!

This year, Easter falls on March 23^rd, and it won’t fall on this date again until the year 2160.

The latest possible date for Easter is April 25^th. Easter hasn’t landed on that date since 1943, but will do so again in the year 2038. I think I have a good sporting chance of making it to that one.  

Before anyone e-mails to set me straight, I am aware that the calculation rule stated above is for the Western Christian churches. The Eastern Christian churches follow a different method. I’ll not confuse the issue by delving into the details. Let’s just say there have been efforts made over many years to reach an accord, and folks were unable to agree. Imagine that.  My mind is still reeling from trying to understand it all. Feel free to look it up at your own leisure.

Switching over to an entirely different subject (I warned you that I was not thinking clearly), I found that the Jelly Belly Candy Company has been selling  Bertie Bott’s Jelly Beans. (Warning: Don’t read the next few lines if you have a weak stomach) Partitioned neatly inside the 1.6 oz. box are jelly beans of the following flavors: earwax, bacon, dirt, spinach, grass, booger, sardine, black pepper, rotten egg, earthworm, soap, spaghetti, and last, but certainly not least, vomit. Yuck! And who was the person who taste-tested and knew what all those things should taste like? Double Yuck!

How do I know that every man who just read this is looking for a box right now? I pity the poor unsuspecting soul who picks up a few of these out of the bowl on his co-workers desk.

I think I’ll avoid jelly beans until I’m thinking a little more clearly.