See, when you work two jobs, no matter how you look at it...you are in for a long day. I work roughly 14 hours Monday through Friday, and by the end of the day I just want to go home, decompress, eat, sleep and watch a little tv. Sadly, it never works out that way.
It seems that no matter how much I try to plan I always seem to forget to run some errand or pick up something or even get gas. The gas one happens more times than it should. And if I forget something in the morning, that means I have to try and do it during the ten minutes I have inbetween my two jobs. If I can't do it then, it means my only other option is to get it done after I get off my second job... at 11 pm. Which as you can guess, adds just a little more time to that 14 hour day.
As does going to the gym. It didn't take me long to discover that eating and laying on the couch while watching tv every night was doing some pretty unfavorable things to my body shape and health. So, I had to added two to three trips to the gym every week. Those trips take that 14 hour day all the way up to a 16 hour day.
The long and the short of it is, when I get home after these super long days of working, running errands and working out, I look as if someone threw sand in my eyes and hit me in the face with a shovel. And all I want to do is sleep. That's really what I should be doing right now. The problem is... I can't. I can't shut my brain off and stop thinking... Stupid Easter Bunny.
Yeah, you heard me. Stupid Easter Bunny. Who are you? You furry icon of mystery. Who are you!?!
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| Is this the Easter Bunny? |
So, when I was at the gym and I began thinking about Easter, I nearly fell off the tread mill when I realized, we have no clue who the Easter Bunny is. When you take the time to think about it, it is actually pretty scary that we know essentially nothing about this creature that sneaks into our homes and leaves baskets full of candy and toys for our kids.
All night I have been searching my memory for some answers. Surely, at some point I had heard a story or read something that would answer all the questions are bouncing around in my head, but I couldn't think of anything.
Let me share just a few of these questions that are keeping me from sleep.
- What is your name? Are you just called, the Easter Bunny?
- Where do you live?
- Who works with you? Santa has his elves. Who do you have?
- How do you get into our homes?
- Do you wear clothes?
- Are you a boy or a girl?
- What do you really look like? Some claim you are short while others say you are 6 feet.
- How do you transport all these baskets?
- Does it matter if you are naughty or nice?
- How did you even get involved with Easter?
- What is your connection to Jesus?
There are others, but those are the main ones. So, I thought maybe if I did a little research on Easter I could come up with something that would answer enough of my questions so I could get some sleep. Ha ha. I love when I am wrong.
To make a long story short, for those of you who don't know, Easter is a Christian holiday that celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. You know, the day he rose from the dead (not as a zombie I might add) and ascended to heaven. In all my Google searching I found no mention of a bunny having anything to do with Easter except for the modern association of him...her... it bringing us Easter baskets and hanging out at malls.
Now, I really wasn't sleeping. This was crazy. There was no historical record of the Easter Bunny. I kept searching and searching. I read over 52 articles before I finally stumbled upon a brief mention of the bunny being an important part of an ancient pagan celebration of the Goddess of Fertility known as Eastre.
So, after even more research and another Smores flavored Pop Tart, what I get hungry when I get all Sherlock Holmesy, I finally found my answers.
The pagans Goddess of Fertility, Eastre, and her consort a hare, were honored at the beginning of every spring. People celebrated this as a time of replenishing, renewal and rebirth. And yes, we do get the name 'Easter' from the Goddess 'Eastre'.
It seems just like with some of our other holidays, we adopted the pagan holiday and merged it with one of our own to make converting them to Christianity easier.
And while it was Eastre who gave us the name Easter, it was the German settlers who, in the 1700s, finally brought the Easter Bunny to America. Except back then we called him, the Easter Hare.
In fact, the earliest mention of the bunny as being a symbol of Easter dates back to Germany in the 1500s. Germans called him, Oschter Haws. I couldn't find what that translates to in English, but for piece-of-minds sake, I'm guessing it is, Easter Bunny.
Apparently, Oschter Haws stole his gimmick from Santa Claus, because if children wanted any of his colorful eggs, they had to be good. There isn't any mention of what the bad children got, but I'm guessing it wasn't pretty.
Another interesting fact about Easter is that Christians pretty much ignored the holiday and it wasn't until after the civil war that the holiday was finally widely celebrated. By the 19th century, we had re-branded the Easter Hare into the Easter Bunny.
Finally, the mystery is solved and my brain can rest. Hopefully, after reading this all your questions were answered as well so you don't suffer as I did.
Oh, one last thing. The first edible Easter bunnies were made in Germany during the early 1800s. They, however, were not made of chocolate; they were made of pastry and sugar.
Good night.
