Just days after surviving Daylight Saving Time, along comes Easter and there they are . . . wide-eyed at four o’clock in the morning (which is technically three o’clock), standing by your bed staring you down, ready to rock-n-roll.
No, not your pets! Your kids!
Second only to Christmas, Easter is holiday hell.
Another celebration of white lies and fictitious heroes. The time when parents everywhere must convince the kiddos that a life-sized bunny travels house-to-house dropping off baskets filled with toys, trinkets, and pounds of unnecessary candy. For the sole purpose of making them smile.
It’s time-consuming, stressful, and pure insanity.
If you’ve blocked this holiday out of your memory from last year, or if you’re a new parent, let me fill you in on the biggest reasons why Easter turns even the most mild-mannered parent into a stark raving lunatic:
The colored eggs never turn out quite as awesome as what is shown on the box.
I don’t care how much vinegar you add to the water, your eggs will never be as vibrant as the models on the box. The kids really don’t care, but you have a point to make. With a $2.99 box of dye.
You hide thirty eggs, but only twenty-nine are found.
Missing Easter eggs must disappear into the same black hole as the other matching socks. Search all you want, but you won’t find that lost egg until you’re shoveling your driveway in December.
Filling baskets is like doing yoga on a roller coaster.
The worst part of Easter has to be filling those awful baskets. Getting everything positioned and secured in one place is nearly impossible. Add something to the front and everything in the back falls out. Lean something against the handle and the candy in the center sinks to the bottom. THEN you have to lift the basket to wrap it with cellophane.
What do you mean, “What cellophane?”
Oh, no! You forgot? Happens to the best of us. All of us. Every damn year.
Easter whites turn into Easter seriously bites before you even leave the house.
Kids have no concept of staying clean. So don’t dress them until you are ready to go out the door.
The plastic basket grass is the equivalent of a fast-growing weed.
Think dandelions are a problem? Wait until you deal with Easter basket grass. I’m still finding this rainbow-colored nightmare from Easter of 1999.
You’re expected to be in five different places at the same time.
If you have a large family, blended family, crazy family, then you know what I’m talking about. Everyone expects YOU to show up at THEIR house at a pre-conceived time for Easter brunch, dinner, or other celebratory event, and they’re all scheduled around the same time or with minutes to spare. Relax. We now have hoverboards. Cloning is almost a thing.
Oh, what a mess!
Aside from the grass (buy edible), get ready for the onslaught of empty cartons, tiny baskets, plastic carrot-shaped containers, stickers, seals, broken lids, pieces of cellophane, and a handful of other packaging leftovers that will be disbursed and shoved in corners of bedrooms, under beds, the back of closets, dresser drawers, school bags, the bathroom.
Yes, even the bathroom will be under siege. It’s a mess you’ll be cleaning for days.
Easter might seem like the Eggpocalypse and it is rough on parents, but it’s also a time to kick back and enjoy a little time together.
So don’t forget the true meaning of this holiday: family.
Now, go buy some cellophane. And hide those pale eggs!