Chocolate and family traditions
Ah Easter, the time of year where I can get the most bang for my buck with annual leave and public holidays.
Much the same as I do not appreciate hearing Christmas carols before December 1, I feel similarly aggrieved when I see hot cross buns in the supermarket before the beginning of March.
This year was a particular stand out - I spied some of the offending caramel-coloured striped rocks sitting on a table near the bakery section of one Invercargill supermarket less than a fortnight after Christmas.
As delicious as some, not all, hot cross buns are, there’s more to Easter than spiced carbohydrate deliciousness and chocolate eggs.
This year, some of my family are coming to visit and I am very much looking forward to forcing my 6 and 10-year-old brothers to watch Rise of the Guardians with me, under the pretence that they’re kids so I have to watch kids’ movies with them.
(By the way, if you ever watch that movie while you’re beyond the valley of tired, it will be one of the funniest movies you’ve ever seen.) In addition to them, it’s going to be quite a full house.
A couple of friends from my university days and a cousin visiting from uni in Dunedin (I assume she’s quite enamoured with the idea of escaping the icy talons of her student flat to come down here and have my aunty/ mother dearest take pity on her and buy her an Easter egg).
But isn’t that what we sort of love about Easter? Stuffing our faces with countless caramello eggs and shards of broken-up hollow eggs? Maybe.
It’s not quite halfway through the year, we get a bit of a break from work and, for some, it’s almost a wannabe Christmas with family coming home for a little holiday.
Personally, sleep-ins are one of my fave things about Easter but given my little brothers will be in the house, I think I’ll be lucky to get to 8am. Easter traditions in my household hail back to getting up on Easter Sunday and finding my egg on the end of my bed.
It had this hip-looking tween packaging and came with heart shaped jelly lollies in it. However, the promise of the egg did come with strict instructions that 7.30am on a Sunday was not an appropriate time to wake mum and dad up to ask for breakfast. Instead, it was chocolate for breakfast in front of the TV watching What Now, which was the only thing worth watching on a Sunday morning.
While this in no way reflects the true meaning of Easter - Jesus died, nek minnit Jesus rose (if I’m being concise) - family quirks are part of what makes those various holiday seasons special.
Maybe you go away to the crib for the long weekend or maybe you play an annual family backyard cricket game.
Or maybe you’re like me and give salty side-eye glares to any disturbance which makes itself known before the light touches the ground on Easter Sunday/ Monday.
Yes, one year that included a then 3-year-old brother sticking a finger in my ear to tell me he wanted another piece of vegemite toast. The finger he’d just been sucking on seven seconds ago. Little rat didn’t even finish the piece of toast I got up to make him. #ungrateful
Sigh. Happy Easter y’all - cherish your family traditions, even if you kind of don’t like them.