There is a strange little window that we live in post-holiday. After Christmas, it's that fortnight or so when the tree is still up, but there's more needles on the floor than on the branches, opened presents lie around the living room floor, still in their boxes half-adorned with wrapping paper, and the outside lights still click on when the timer hits 8 p.m., although no one looks at them with the wonderment they elicited on Christmas Eve.
In the week or so after Thanksgiving, we eat turkey sandwiches at lunch and dinner until we feel we can't take another bite, the fridge is so jammed with leftovers that it's impossible to retrieve anything without moving something else, and the wishbone hangs over a cupboard door knob as we wait for it to dry just enough so that we can challenge a loved one to a duel where the only prize is the promise of a wish granted.
As you read this, many of you are in that window. Half-gnawed chocolate bunnies repose behind the cellophane of their boxes, egg salad has been the sandwich of choice for lunch day in and day out, and there's more plastic grass on your carpet indoors than there is real grass on your lawn outdoors.
Each holiday is rife with rituals, and each ritual ties us to the time and season we celebrate.
One of the oddest bits about Easter -- the celebratory part of the holiday, that is, which bears no relation to its religious origin -- is the fact that we sell kids on the idea that a bunny hops around and delivers candy and colored chicken eggs, of all things, to them in a basket that he takes the trouble of hiding somewhere about the house.
Most kids learn by their second remembered Easter celebration that the hippity-hoppity bunny isn't too industrious and only hides the basket in one or two fairly obvious spots. Kids at this higher level of holiday understanding never check the basement or attic for their goodies, as they know their pastel-hued basket will be found behind the couch or in the space between the oven and the wall.
But why colored chicken eggs? One would think that a rabbit might bring lettuce or carrots -- and American kids might not be losing the war on obesity if they did -- but why eggs?
The answer lies, as it does so often, with our holidays, with the good old pagans of yore. It is believed that the egg represents fertility and was used symbolically to end fasting. The bunny represents fertility -- you've no doubt heard the phrase, "blanking like rabbits" -- and the coming of spring.
It is believed that the tradition of rolling Easter eggs across the lawn is symbolic of the rolling of the stone away from Jesus' tomb. The colors on the eggs represent the colors of spring, which in many regions have been absent from the landscape for many months.
Did you know that the Filet-o-Fish sandwich owes its existence to Easter? It's true. In 2007, the Cincinnati Enquirer detailed how a McDonald's franchise owner from their area, Lou Groen, created the sandwich in 1962 and saved his business.
It seems that the neighborhood where Groen's McDonald's customers were 87 percent devout Catholic. On Fridays during Lent, his total take was a measly $75, while the Big Boy Restaurant was raking in the dough serving a fish sandwich.
Groen created his own sandwich and took it to McDonald's headquarters for approval. McDonald's founder Ray Kroc had been working on a meatless sandwich of his own called the Hula Burger, a bun with a slice of pineapple in place of a hamburger, and he challenged Groen to a sandwich showdown.
The chose a Friday and sold both sandwiches, with the winner being the first addition to the original McDonald's menu. You know how that came out, right? Today some 300 million
Filet-o-Fish sandwiches are consumed annually. Hula Burgers? Eh, not so many -- but one could argue that Kroc was a winner either way.
Easter indirectly gives us two other rituals, or more appropriately, superstitions that have bled over into all parts of the year.
The first is our aversion to the number 13. This dates back to the Last Supper and the fact there were 13 people seated at the meal that would be Jesus' last.
Since that time, we consider the number 13 to be bad luck. It is nearly impossible to find a North American hotel with a 13th floor. If the hotel is tall enough there is a 13th floor, of course, but it is marked as the 14th floor, allowing superstitious souls to sleep like a baby.
The second superstition that finds its roots with the Last Supper is the tradition of throwing salt over one's left shoulder when it is spilled. In DaVinci's famous painting of the Last Supper, Judas Iscariot is seated to the right of Christ and he has overturned the saltshaker in front of him. It is said that the painting captures the exact moment when Jesus uttered the words, "Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me."
As a result, we throw salt over the left shoulder, away from Judas, into the eye of the devil, blinding him temporarily. So if you eat 13 hard-boiled Easter eggs and spill the salt from your shaker, you're conjuring up superstition all over the place.
One more superstition that isn't tied directly to Easter, but does connect to Christianity, is the habit of avoiding walking under a ladder. Common sense would say the practice began to protect people from falling scaffolding, but the true origin is found in the shape the ladder creates.
A ladder that leans against a building creates a triangle, representing the Holy Trinity. To walk under a ladder is to shatter the Holy Trinity or to disavow the words and commands of God himself.
And you thought you were just looking out for falling paint cans.
Here's hoping your post-Easter week is treating you kindly and that you fare just as well in the Roman candle and bottle rocket days that follow the Fourth of July.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | April 10 2012 |