Easter and eggs, picnics, candy and such

There are several myths associated with the Easter holiday. Interestingly, they all involve the secular aspects of the festivities rather than the religious ones.
One is that a there is a tradition where you pack a lunch and go the park or the woods and have an Easter picnic. Well, okay you can try it; but if it means spreading a tablecloth on the green grass and enjoying the warm sunshine, I don’t remember it ever happening. All of the Easter picnics I have attended were accompanied by wind, rain or snow, and freezing temperatures. Come to think of it, so are most other holidays around here.
I guess the key figure associated with Easter is the Easter bunny/beagle whose primary responsibility is to bring/hide the Easter eggs/candy, however I don’t think that there is much consistency in his methods of operation. He and the tooth fairy are first cousins and both of them were invented by greedy children who were smarter than their parents which isn’t necessarily saying much.
The Easter bonnet must be a holdover from the horse and buggy days, because I don’t think that the bonnet trade is too brisk now no matter which holiday you are shopping for.
I remember that when I was a child, my friends went to dance class where they danced to a song called The Easter Parade. Since I didn’t get to go to dance class and wished I did and didn’t have an Easter bonnet and wished I had, I have since harbored unforgiving feelings toward Easter bonnets and wouldn’t wear one if it were the prevailing social custom to wear them to Wal-Mart. These feelings are a holdover from my early days, which fortunately date only back to the Nash Rambler era.
There is also a myth that Marshmallow Peeps are a variety of Easter candy. I guess people must buy them. I don’t think they eat them though, in fact I don’t think they are edible. In many cases they seem to be holdovers from last year. They are more suitably used for art projects, pets, ball games, packing, trouble toys, science projects, and to make political statements.
Another myth, as far as I am concerned, is the Easter dress. I never remember about the custom of getting a new spring dress until I sit down in church on Easter Sunday and begin to look around. That is probably because it is rarely spring when Easter comes.
Last but not least is the Easter egg. Coloring eggs is an activity where happy children make colorful artistic creations without ever cracking an egg. Myth.
Actually coloring eggs is when grabby-handed mad-scientists stand on chairs around the kitchen island and mix different colors of dye. They don’t remember from one year to the next that all of the colors of dye mixed together result in eggs that are similar to that other proverbial spheroid, the lead balloon. The same holds true for the trendy “natural/organic” dyes.
This is also a time to redecorate the surface of the countertops, as well as various articles of clothing, the chair legs, the front porch and themselves in the same dingy color with time out needed for crying when the eggs roll off the counter in various directions.
Look at it this way: you can boast that you had a gray Easter. What could be more natural than that? Just look at the sky; and I hope I didn’t just lay an egg here.