Category: Check the Date

10 Best Alternatives to the Easter Bunny

J-P Mauro at Aleteia writes “Let’s stop with the Easter Bunny.”  Around here we treat the Easter Bunny the same way we treat Santa Claus, for exactly the reasons Mauro explains.  But what if that solution wasn’t enough for your family?  What if you really truly needed to ditch the Easter Bunny?  For example, say you had a weird disease that caused you not to love rabbits?

Luckily as an Easter People, we can rise above!  Here are the top ten alternatives to the Easter Bunny, loved by Christians around the world:

1. The Easter Beagle Take the ringing of the bells at the Gloria and multiply it by 10,000.  That’s the sound of Easter Beagles joyously proclaiming the Resurrection.  You won’t, of course, want to give your children real beagles for Easter, unless you want the Good News proclaimed every time the doorbell rings, the neighbor’s cat walks by, or a stray leaf blows through your yard.  PETA’s job would be a lot easier if we switched to the Easter Beagle.

2. The Easter Lion  And it symbolizes the Lion of Judah and no children have ever come back alive to report that the Easter Lion at the mall is actually just same lion whose day job is sleeping all afternoon at the zoo.  Ideal for families on the Paleo diet, because instead of bringing baskets of sugary candy, the Easter Lion brings home hunks of raw meat for the young cubs.

3. The Easter Chicken Perfect for people who always felt the Easter Bunny was appropriating avian culture.

4. The Easter Platypus If you want to solve the egg problem without giving up on the cute furry mammal thing.  Always good for a quick laugh when you are really straining for material in your comedy routine.

5. The Easter Polar Bear What can we say about the polar bear?  It’s adorable from a distance?  It’s an endangered species? It’s a deadly predator?  Sounds exactly like the way the media describes Christians!  You won’t find a more accurate symbol of Easter for the new millenium.

6. The Easter Cardinal These bright red birds with their cheerful disposition and playful habits symbolize everything a Christian is looking for in an Easter mascot: A bad pun on something to do with the Church, and also it’s the only bird at the feeder you know how to identify.  Caveats: Leaves sunflower seed shells everywhere, and may be objectionable to certain sports fans.

7. The Easter Ferret  Where some people see a creepy, dodgy predator, others see a loveable pet.  Ferrets are a perfect symbol of the Resurrection, because just when you think you’ve lost your little darling for good, he finally turns up again.  This is the perfect Easter mascot for those whose vision of the Heavenly Banquet comes with a soundtrack from WOW’s Top Hits of 1999.

8. The Easter Retriever  This winsome, loveable pal doesn’t hide your eggs, he finds them — over, and over, and over again.  You’ll have no trouble enjoying all eight weeks of the Easter season, though admittedly those plastic eggs are gonna be a little slobber-worn by the time Pentecost rolls around.

9. The Easter Dolphin Imagine you were the kind of Catholic who habitually prays for the repose of the soul of Douglas Adams. If that’s you, the dolphin symbolizes hope for a better world, the great questions of human existence, and the number 42.  An Easter Dolphin magnet on the back of your car adds depth and meaning to that faded Christian Fish you almost peeled off and then didn’t.

10. The Easter Groundhog  If the Easter Groundhog comes out and sees its shadow on Good Friday, that’s 36 more hours before you can legit break out the Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs.

File:Puck Easter 1907 - L.M. Glackens. LCCN2011647186.tif

Illustration courtesy of Wikimedia, Public Domain.

 

Blog News You’d Hate To Miss

As Lent winds up, I’d like to let you know about some changes coming to the blog.

Those of you who’ve been reading me since the very beginning know that I’ve gone through a series of transitions as a writer.  I started out as an anonymous homeschool-blogger, just trying to share my experiences and get some practice writing for an audience.  Over the years I’ve been a contributor to other Catholic blogs, magazines, and books, as well as spearheading some projects of my own.

Variety and change are the name of the game.

With that in mind, and having had a week to reflect after the refreshing and fruitful retreat I took last weekend, now seems like the perfect day to share the changes you may see here.  What to look for in the future:

More Hands-On Experience.  Maybe it’s the coloring book rubbing off on me, maybe it’s all the art I post, but something’s having an effect.  From here on out, this is going to be primarily a craft blog.  I envision the bulk of the projects involving hot glue and day-glo pom poms.

Pom-Pom photo by Mvolz (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.  This is roughly what we’re going for, only with colors that are a little more searing.  These, glued to things.  Everything.

More Pop Culture.  Reader, you know how important evangelization is to me.  And every writer (myself excepted) seems to feel that the secret to evangelization is immersing oneself in the interests of the persons being evangelized.  I’m ready to take that advice.  For religious purposes, therefore, from now on when I’m not crafting, I’ll be keeping you updated on celebrity news, the NFL, and How The Gamecocks are Doing This Season.

We’ll continue talking about the weather, too, but that’s not a big change.

Less Depressing Arguing Stuff.   It took a lot of memes to get this through my head, but listen guys: Opinions on weighty matters are out of here like last year.  Giving a reason for your hope?  Some reasons are more equal than others, you know.  We’re going to focus on inspiring quotes from Anonymous. Where possible, I’ll provide an attribution to St. Francis of Assisi.  He probably said something like that anyway.

Same Great Sacred Art, Updated.  You already know I’m not much of a traditionalist — if it’s true, beautiful, good, and approved by the Church, I can work with it, new or old.  With that in mind, I’ll be sharing a lot more music videos.  Trap Masses, primarily.

As for Caravaggio?  Of course I’d never let that go.  But from now on, it’ll be all the great works of antiquity forward, but re-interpreted in the style of “Family Circus.”

You’re gonna love it.

Look for these great new blog experiences as often as once a year!