Why I Hate the Easter Bunny

If you've read my blog for a while, you might have noticed that I have some strong opinions about certain things.  Maybe.  Well, in this case I do have a strong opinion about something:  The Easter Bunny.

Now, if you're reading this, you might think, "Deb, how could you possibly hate the Easter Bunny?  A cute fluffy bunny that brings candy to small children?  How innocent is that?"

But I ask you to consider this.  Have you ever seen a cute fluffy Easter Bunny?  No!  First of all, most Easter Bunnies I've seen are the size of an adult human.  In fact the ones at the mall are about the size of men that can't find full time employment elsewhere.  Based on mall experiences, too, I think the Easter Bunny smokes.  Another strike against him -- especially since I'm evangelical and we don't bode to well to smoking bunnies.  

Think about the Easter Bunny's face.  You've got a head that is not only 3 to 4 times bigger than the average bunny, but is proportionally large for his body.  And the teeth!  To quote Monty Python, "LOOK AT THE FANGS!" Can you really trust that plastic smile? Really?

Then there is his color.  What sick genetic mutation or radiation causes a bunny to be pink or purple or blue.  But the freakiest thing is that he, HE I might add, lays EGGS!  That's just creepy!  Do you people really believe that the egg shaped things coming out of a bunny's rear end are chocolate? 

All kidding aside, we don't let the Easter Bunny visit us.  Santa doesn't stop here either.  And, yet, somehow our kids are happy and well behaved.  Santa doesn't visit because there was no way that I was going to give credit for money spent by me, time spent by me, and creative energy spent by me to some lazy old guy who forces little people to work relentlessly and himself only works once a year.  In addition to that he is no longer based upon the story of St. Nick but on a great marketing scheme thought up by Macy's in  the early 20th century.  Although lots of Christian publishers and marketing companies would really like us to believe we can tie the two together, they really aren't the same.  Santa of today is a marketing tool to manipulate parents into standing outside a Toys R Us over night in order to make sure that they can get the gift that their kid asked for from Santa.  It's really an ingenious scheme. 

 We celebrate Christmas, and the gifts are all from people who love them, know them and were excited to take the time to purchase them,  And those gifts are not given based upon the kid's behavior but on our unconditional love that wants to give them good gifts.  

Now, my intense hate for the Easter Bunny dates back to a time in my life when I was teaching Sunday school to 4-year-olds.  It was Easter time and I asked the kids, "What is Easter all about?"

The entire class looked at me and answered in unison,  "CANDY!"

That was disturbing to me because these kids were kids that were from homes where I'm confident that the true significance of Easter was being taught.  However, with kids, chocolate trumps eternity in paradise and so the message that came across was, "Candy!"

While we do have some candy at our house at Easter, and we do an Easter Egg hunt, we've made a point to intentionally point it toward the empty tomb.  The empty Easter Egg gets you a prize and we have a special box and book we use to tell the story of Easter in the weeks leading up to the day. There are no evil oversized bunnies that poop chocolate in our house, and nobody misses him. The only star of Easter is Jesus and we don't want to ask him to share the stage with a mutant bunny.  

 

Easter is a celebration of the single most important event in the entire history of the world!  Until the moment that Jesus came back to life, it looked as though death had conquered and there was no hope.  On Easter, though, we won the victory over sin and death and could now be in relationship with God again!  No longer was there any separation at all.  

I love to tell my kids the part of the Easter story where the curtain in the Temple rips in two.  Every time I tell it, we stop to talk about how, in the times before Jesus they would tie a rope to the ankle of the priest who was required to enter the Holy of Holies where God's presence resided.  

"And do you guys remember why they tied a rope?" I ask.

And every time, with big eyes and hushed voices they reply, "In case he would DIE from being the presence of God!  Then they could drag him out!" Needless to say, they are pretty impressed with a God whose presence is holy enough to cause someone to just drop dead! And any story involving pulling a dead guy with a rope is a great story. 

But, thanks to Jesus, there's no more rope.  In fact, there's no more curtain!  You can just be in the Holy of Holies, we can be in the presence of God, and he can inhabit us.  Kids can understand this, they really can, and they can celebrate that truth. 

That is so much more exciting than a stupid bunny that lays eggs!  Why would we even want to draw attention away from the exciting good story to the utterly ridiculous one! 

So, at our house the Easter Bunny is in the same boat as Santa Claus.  Because I don't like either of them, that is a really small row boat, with a tiny leak in the bottom that will hopefully one day sink and they'll both die. 

Until then, though, when nice people ask my kids if the Easter Bunny is going to visit they just look at them with totally blank faces and nod their heads.   But don't worry, they know they aren't allowed to tell other kids the truth about the Easter Bunny or Santa.

And, as far as the tooth fairy goes, I have them pretty convinced that Dad dresses up in a fairy costume, steals into their rooms and exchanges the tooth for money.