Monday, March 03, 2008

Married to the Easter Bunny

By Chris

My first call of the day was to Teresa. She had long ago left the house. Bright and early. "Hello, is this the Easter Bunny?" I asked. And, so, I've accepted it. My wife is the Easter Bunny. For two weeks. Taking a leadership role in the 40-year-old church Easter Egg seling, making and delivering project. The downers: Lots of time coordinating the massive process of processing thousands of orders for sweet easter eggs. Less time with wife (i.e., she's easter bunny for a while). There could be upsides: smelling the good egg smell all the time? Ensured delivery of plenty of eggs. Stuff like that. Now, I was absolutely terrified of the Easter Bunny (and clowns, santa's etc.) as a kid, so to think that I would end up sleeping with the Easter Bunny is pretty, uhhh.... funny.

More on the Easter Egg project. Growing up, the church Easter Egg was always the centerpiece of my Easter Basket. Teresa's too. We understood that these things came from church. We also knew that our Grandmothers (and my Great Grandmother, I think) somehow played a role in all of this. It was something the older ladies at church did. Well, I guess Teresa is "the older ladies at church" now. Ha! And, now we get that it's a whole heap of work. My knees, back and head are achin' even now from the itsy, bitsy bit of Easter Bunny work I put in this weekend. So, a torch has been passed. The new Easter Bunnies have installed some new practices, but the end product will be the same. The tradition, after apparently being in some danger of passing quietly away, will instead continue for at least a little longer. Sure, it's not exactly up there with the resurrection of Jesus, but traditions like these Easter Eggs have real significance when you do them for 40 years. They represent a lot in terms of common culture, bonds, longevity and a long list of intangible but real stuff like that. It's legacy stuff . . ... tradition and legacies are high on my list of things I respect and encourage. And, the project raises a lot of money that ends up in the hands of people going through hard times, anonymously, with no strings attached. I was recently telling my kids (the ones I raise and the ones I coach) about an old song we used to sing in church: "Count your blessings, name them one by one . . . Count your many blessings, see what God has done!! ..." So, thank you Easter Bunny, baby!!!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Teresa is a young chick (I mean bunny). She will do an awesome job carrying the torch and implementing new ideas to make the project run smoothly. Thanks for everything you do, Chris, to make it possible for her to do all of the important volunteer work she does.

Anonymous said...

Chris' grandmother and great grandmother did in fact log in many hours on the Easter Egg Project every year for many years. His grandmother even took a bunch of vacation time to make eggs. I remember hanging around the church for hours while the ladies made eggs, then, helping some when I was old enough. Ahhh ... yes ... thank you Teresa for seeing that the legacy lives on and Chris for making it possible for her to do so. We're so proud of you both.

And ... the grandparents love every opportunity to see their grandkids too.