Springtime Where are You?

It will be Easter Sunday a week from today and I just wonder where the tulips are? As a child living in Ontario I always remember us in dresses and bare arms during Easter break. Here in Southern Alberta things are so unpredictable but I must say the last couple of years have been particularly horrendous when it comes to weather.

Alright, let’s take a page out of Mark Twain’s book and make that the last time today I talk about it!

When we were really little we would get an Easter Egg, the bunnies were too expensive for us to get. As we got older my mother would buy us a good chocolate bar instead of an egg because she didn’t like the taste of the chocolate (she thought it was cheap). Naturally we felt jipped. Sometimes we played games like following a row of jelly beans to find our treat, we’d each have our own colour to find. I remember one time it lead nowhere but at the end there was a pile of multicoloured jelly beans so I would have to search even harder. That was my dad, he was always rather tricky and liked to make good fun. Jeanette always used to freak out if he did a trick, she was not good at laughing at the joke.

I remember when they put on the different Easter stories. The Robe came on quite often and when we got a bit older BenHur would also be an Easter favourite. They really don’t make Easter stories the way they make Christmas stories. Why is that? I always get very choked up at the end of both The Robe and BenHur when the crucifixion happens. The story of Jesus’ sacrifice is poignant and powerful. It would be nice if a producer could write a story that is more up-to-date in connecting with people. What I mean is that the films are generally too filled with biblical phraseology and I would like to hear people speaking realistically as well as making the stories more in line with what really happened.

I was quite young when I started wondering what bunnies and eggs had to do with the Easter story so I must admit that I have never been super high on Easter as a “holiday”. Even though we were not a religious family I did feel that the crucifixion was a serious story. I was a strange child.

Today I just think of Easter as the usher of spring – and I would like to know why that isn’t happening right across this country? Jeanette said they have snow this morning too! What is going on with our weather? (oops, sorry Mark, but this writer cannot be true to her word!)