You’ll be the grandest fella in the Easter parade

The Easter Bunny is a rubbish figurehead, not fit to polish Santa’s sleigh. For one thing, his (her?) image is vague. The Easter Bunny in my head is huge and terrifying, like Harvey, the invisible six-foot rabbit in the Jimmy Stewart film. But a highly scientific straw poll I conducted recently, revealed Bunnies resembling Hartley Hare from Pipkins, Bigwig from Watership Down, and the sexy Caramac bunny. Plus, his role is unclear. Some people (such as my children’s friends, thanks a bunch, guys), insist the rabbit brings their Easter eggs, whilst we’d been getting on fine without chocolate input from some damn cottontail. Santa and the tooth fairy take the credit for everything else, so I tried to resist. But last year the pressure got to me, so I put cutesy notes from the E.B. on the eggs. The children gamely humoured me, proving you can’t suddenly introduce a meddling bunny tradition without getting royally patronised by your kids.

Nothing about Easter is properly organised. The administrator is clearly one of those jaded types who does their online shop in work time. Take the timing of egg eating. Regardless of who brings them, it’s just chaos. Some wait till after Good Friday, others scoff the lot as soon as schools break up. Man of the House tries to insist on restraint till Easter Sunday, unless we spend four hours at a vigil mass. Others simply confiscate the eggs and put them on a high shelf for safe-eating, I mean safe-keeping.

Easter, in short, is no Christmas. Everyone knows what they’re meant to do at Christmas: make passive-aggressive remarks about their presents, and eat until they’re so log-jammed they’re pushing roast potatoes in with a plunger. Who knows what you’re meant to do at Easter? Sure, religious people have plenty to be getting on with – palms and stations of the cross – while Pagans have their tabloid-friendly fertility rites. But the rest of us have no fixed roles. All that’s on offer, really, is blowing egg out so you can decorate the shell (no-one has  ever done this successfully, I don’t believe you), and standing around aimlessly on low hills, watching small children sob because their badly-decorated eggs have only rolled a couple of feet. And that’s not even an annual thing; people only ever go to an egg-rolling event once.

In an attempt to scaffold some structure round this imprecise holiday, I’m introducing some Easter customs into my household. Telly – Easter Parade (like the Wizard of Oz, it stars Judy Garland). Game – egg jarping. This is conkers played with hard-boiled eggs, with nice clear rules, as determined by the World Egg Jarping Association (look it up, doubter). Eat – chocolate. C’mon, let’s not mess with success. Gifts – chocolate. This is where Easter has the potential to outclass Christmas, if it only had better PR. No need to stress about what gifts to buy, it’s choccie eggs all round. Just leave the bunny out of it.

Beth Miller. Published in Viva Lewes April 2014, and vivalewes.com. Illustration by Michael Munday.

She knows she's the chocolate girl

Easter has changed its meaning over the years. When I was a child, it was a time of dismay, because it always coincided with Passover. This is a Jewish festival, so called because the Angel of Chocolate passes over the houses of Jewish children and gives them matzos instead. A matzo is a large square cracker; pleasant enough, but not really a substitute for delicious creamy chocolate. Makes a lousy sandwich too. Bite into it and it explodes into fragments, which is why at Passover, Jewish mothers all carry dust-busters in their handbags.

If only I’d been aware, back then, of Richard Dawkin’s proposition that bringing up a child within a religion is tantamount to abuse. Though he selfishly didn’t make this statement till 2006, far too late for me. To be fair, being brought up a liberal Jew wasn’t usually abusive so much as wishy-washy. Until I was given some criminally horrible ‘approved for Passover’ chocolate, at which point I would have been only too happy to ring Social Services and expose my parents as monsters.

Once I grew up and could abandon the faith of my forefathers, which I did gladly, Easter became a time of supersize gluttony. There were lost years to make up for. Soon after Man of the House and I got together, he briefly left me alone in the car with a large Easter egg which we were taking somewhere as a gift. By the time he’d paid for the petrol, I’d laid waste to it like a plague of locusts, and had no defence other than to mumble, thickly, ‘You were sold a pup, this box only has half an egg in it’.

When my kids were toddlers, Easter became a lovely four day break, spent gazing at their dear little faces as I scoffed the many presents they’d been sent, and occasionally chucked them a smartie.

Then Thing One started school, and Easter is now an immensely long holiday for which I am completely unprepared. Two weeks? Hang on, we’ve only just had half-term. Everyone else must have been secretly planning, as they’ve all gone away, in a mass Exodus (I still remember my Old Testament). In their stead, come a load of people from other places.

In Neros yesterday, I didn’t recognise anyone. You can normally guarantee to see Hoxton Mum at least; she’s always sitting in the window sipping a skinny soy something. The place was heaving, but it was filled with strangers, holiday-makers in wind-cheaters, all talking about how quaint and nice everything was.

I strolled around, looking at Lewes through their eyes. I guess the castle is quite cute. And there’s a Monsoon. And a brewery. Fair enough, it’s got everything you need for a mini-break.

Then I found myself at Catlins. He still had a couple of Montezumas eggs left. I sat in the Grange, frenziedly ripped off the cardboard and tinfoil, and spent a therapeutic afternoon shaking off the memories of my deprived childhood.


Beth Miller, 7th April 2010. Published in VivaLewes.com. Photo by Alex Leith