Set your holidays to LUDICROUS!

Disclaimer: To anyone deeply religious - if you are going to be offended by what is said here about Easter, please stop reading now as no doubt I value your individual opinion and companionship much more. Also there's some stuff about imaginary things that I don't think kids should read.

A small, tinny boom box blurted to life with the sounds of Little Peter Rabbit and the hundred oddly dressed children that surrounded me took flight in a crazy ritualistic dance. That's right - I was witnessing my first Easter bonnet parade as an adult.

Let's first start off by saying that I think this is one of the most special events that you could ever experience, and by far the cutest thing you can imagine your child doing. The magic they feel and the fun they can have in the simplest of moments is intoxicating. And if nothing else, I believe this tradition should always continue just for the simple laughter, the joyous faces, and the media scrum of parents elbowing each other out of the way to get a photo of their child they could perhaps get seconds later. But that's the point - the moment is so special, they need to get it now. And I really appreciate that.

Now having said that, imagine you are an alien. You come down to Earth and crash land at the local school on the week before Easter and this is the first thing you see. A hundred earthling children dancing around a stage, dressed in absurd attire, all manner of objects stuck on their heads and floating down around them, eating chocolate eggs and singing about rabbits. As an alien, you think - well, what does this tradition mean? And the local organiser-parent (they're the ones screeching at you to submit chocolates and then buy tickets in the raffle to get them back :) naturally comes up and explains the significance - do you could grasp the connection between this wonderland of glorious insanity and the son of a God being executed almost 2000 years earlier? If you think that it is possible without an hour of serious explanation, I think you've lost track of the ridiculousness of Easter.

I tried to get somebody at work later that day to explain the traditions we find ourselves following. The eggs, fine - I get that, the symbolise new life which makes some connection to the story of Jesus giving humans a second chance (why they are chocolate, I'm not sure), but she lost me when she started on about the giant bunnies and decorated currant buns. Once you need to explain the symbolism past about two levels, I really think it's lost it's meaning. This is symbolism: OBJECT stands for MEANING. Anything more complicated than that is starting to clutch at straws. I think perhaps we have moved on so much from what was apparently the original story of Easter that it serves best now as an example of how easily we change our beliefs to suit our lifestyles. To the point where now we spend more of our energy propping up the institution of Easter, rather than showing any interest in it's loosely constructed foundations.

And I love those people that say, "Oh, people - the children are forgetting the true message of Easter." I think you probably lost them a long time ago when you started introducing chocolate eggs and giant invisible bunnies. And what do you expect when you give a child chocolate and then try to make some vague connection between the children and some Messiah being murdered - are they supposed to be happy to receive the chocolate? How do they feel when they're told to forget one non-existant figure, but keep believing in the other even though there's just as much proof of their existence? One of the best things I remember growing up is when the Easter Bilby was introduced - everyone went crazy! You can't change the Easter Bunny?! Why not? He doesn't exist anyway remember? We're not changing Jesus! We could introduce the Easter Teapot and it would make just as much sense a globe-trotting cotton tail.

And it's not that I don't see the value of Easter, I actually had a really great time this year. Four days off in general is always good, but when it's time that is especially put aside for family that's even better. I came to realise many things and appreciate my children a great deal in the past couple of days, and got to spend some time individually with all of them that I hadn't been able to in weeks. I realised that Little Mango 1's behaviour is really not as bad as I think, and the strategies I have been learning about so we don't have to fight are really working. I'm very proud of the way he has responded to it and listened to me when I needed him to - and best of all, I can let him have fun. We even reached some conclusions about how to work better together when school goes back that I can't wait to put into practice. Little Miss Mango is meanwhile toilet training and coming along well (although this is another story), and we were able to make some great breakthroughs even though we went away. And spending extra time with Little Mango 3 is always good - he smiles at me every day now and I think we are really starting to connect properly which is something I was a little worried about earlier. And all of these things have come about because of Easter.

And that's just it, why can't it just be about that? Time away from work, time together, time having fun. Can't we just come back to reality and let go of all the abstract connections we are so desperately trying to hold on to, which distract us from what is really important? If any of these stories are true (although I've heard multiple stories of the same drunken night out that have less plot holes than these), then shouldn't we really just be spending time with the people we love and not celebrating or commemorating or whatever it is we do, about the apparent torture and death of a man 2000 years ago, who may or may not have been the son of God? Easter would work so much better if we just left out all the other stuff.

So I'm sorry to bring such big issues in, but I really wanted to address it. Mostly because I actually started wondering all this while looking at my son's bright green and pink Easter mad-hatters hat, adorned with the baby chicks, easter egg nest, and a tonne of multi-coloured glitter, that sat in his lap because it was literally too big to wear. I still wear the smile of seeing that event, of seeing Little Miss Mango doing the actions to Peter Rabbit, and Little Mango 3 sleeping soundly through the lot, and of my wife, a little embarrassed about the hat she spent all week making but enjoying herself nonetheless.

So fair enough, let's keep the chocolate eggs and currant buns, giant bunnies and hat parades, and just forget all the rest. Because, really when you think about it - forgetting things is just a way of remembering more important things.