What is the Deal With These Christian Holidays?

So, how was your Easter? Let me tell you a bit about mine.

To begin with, somewhere along the line, my kids got it in their heads that Easter, being one of the three major Christian holidays (the others being Christmas and Secretary's Day) that we celebrate in the Posol'stvo household, was a day for them to receive lavish gifts. This all started a few years ago when Mrs. P decided she didn't want the kids filling up on crappy junk food for every holiday, so instead of giving them chocolate bunnies and jelly beans she gave them books instead. In subsequent years, they got mini lacrosse sticks, lego kits, socks, whatever. As long as it wasn't crap.

It was about this time last year that they started making thinly veiled demands as prt of their preparation for easter. And this year, I was cornered twice by two separate kids. The first was telling me that what he wanted were a pair of $80 lacrosse gloves and the other simply implying that cash -- a lot of cash -- would be enough.

They did not get these things.

They got chocolate bunnies.

Easter is one Sunday each year that Mrs. P pretty much insists on all of us going to church as a family. Christmas Eve is another one of those. The fun thing about getting all of us out of the door on time to get to church on Easter is that it is a nightmare from start to finish. Beginning with waking up the kids -- who have learned from the best of them to stay up late and sleep in late. Left to their own devices, it would not be unheard of to see any one of my kids still sound asleep at 2 PM. Luckily for me, they are not yet left to their own devices. Next there is the whole getting showered, dressed, groomed and fed fight. Next there's the whole rushing through chores fight. Next there's the turn off the damn TV fight. And finally there's the put down that lacrosse stick and get into that car and oh my gosh would you look at how dirty you are fight.

By the time we finally pull out of the driveway, no one's talking to each other. Which is, in my opinion, a great frame of mind to be heading to church in.

After church, (Which was a lovely sermon all about how if I am feeling any doubt about my belief at all it is probably because I am embracing evil because if I wasn't how could I possibly not see the absoloute truth of it all?) we went to my sister's house to have a big family dinner.

I have three sisters, one half brother and one step brother. And we were all together. Along with my dad and step mother. The sister who was hosting often leans on me for technical support on her computer systems, which I generally don't mind doing. But on this Sunday in particular, she had asked me to recover her iTunes library, teach her how to use her digital camera to get pictures onto her computer, and install her printer driver. None of which is a problem. Other than the fact that while I was trying to get this stuff done, an impromptu dance party broke out around me. And people kept trying to get me to get up and dance.

And I don't dance.

I think I actually got that written into the small print of our marriage license.

For all of you out there right now who are giving me that look, you know the one, that look that says "How can you possibly NOT dance? Don't you love your wife?" I say, save your energy. I really don't care if you approve or not. I bring many wonderful things to this relationship, but all chances of getting me on a dance floor ended the day I stopped drinking.

Everyone else was dancing all around me. And the floor was shaking as I tried to restore data from a previous backup. And one of my sisters was, due to limited space, wagging her tush well into my personal space bubble.

I was having a panic attack. No I don't think I am being melodramatic. I was having a hard time breathing, and I just needed to get away. So I took my 16 year old out for a driving lesson.

Yes, she has her permit now.

By the time I got back, the dance party was still going on, but new people had come in and others had left. And these new people tried to get me to dance.

Earlier, before the computer support thing and the dance thing and the panic attack thing, we had dinner -- two big hams, mac and cheese, a corn bread pudding thing, salad, etc. And it was during dinner that one of my other sisters felt fit to inform us all that her youngest had spent the previous day puking his guts up.

That's right -- she had brought the plague to our easter dinner.

On Tuesday AM, Mrs. P woke up with a case of the stomach flu that has knocked her flat on her ass for three days straight. I didn't start feeling like crap till yesterday, but I don't think I got as thorough an ass beating as she did -- probably because I didn't hang out in the plague infested dance party all afternoon like she did.

Later Sunday night, Mrs. P informed me of something else I missed while I was working on computers. Seems that my brother in law got himself too far into the bag and decided for some reason that Easter dinner would be a great time to tell my dad just how little respect he has for him, that he feels that my dad made a huge mistake in divorcing my mother and moving on.

I can only presume that this was told to him in front of my step mother and my step brother, the product of my father's second marriage.

In other words, a truly great capper on a truly great Sunday.

I have come to the conclusion that there is a reason why we only celebrate a few times a year like this.