Families have to build their own rituals and traditions; it’s part of becoming a grown up. When the Lad and I moved in together, we began forming traditions of our own, especially since his family lives too far away to make it in for Easter and such. Since Passover and Easter generally fall around the same time, it became tradition for us to host a big Passover Seder, and some years do Easter as well, or King of the Hill People would host an Easter Brunch. Since I was often the lone Jew at Seder, the emphasis rapidly became on conviviality rather than religion, though there was one area where we were strictly adherent: 4 cups of wine. Except for the year where someone (coughcoughdogfacedboycoughcoughkingofthehillpeoplecoughcough) brought the Prophet’s Bourbon. Needless to say, a theme evolved over the years:
Who could say the single most horrifically sacreligious thing during Seder or Easter.
The first year, it was almost the male guests grabbing appetizers off of the tray and rolling around on the floor mimicking John Woo fight choreography as we pondered what would the Last Supper have been like if directed by various famous people. But the person who offered up ‘Quentin Tarantino’ and then did a riff on Pulp Fiction won the reserved handbasket that year. This year, we started the burning early. Friday, Leather Pants Grrl and the Lad picked up Matilda and Dog Faced Boy from the airport midday. We had a 1.5 litre bottle of sake stashed away, waiting for the right time, and hell, Good Friday dinner consisting of an enormous platter of sushi seems like just the time. Then we brilliantly went and got concretes (frozen custard mixed with candy, fruit, or flavorings) and sauntered back to the house to engage in a little festive ritual egg dying.
Never let 5 drunken, snarky, not especially devout people have wax resist crayons and access to dye. When all was said and done, we really wanted to sneak the eggs into someone’s Easter Egg hunt on Sunday. What small god-fearin Kansas child wouldn’t want a pretty pretty egg like these in their basket?
Oh, except for the fact that they say things like, “Stigmata: The Musical!”, “Ripley- Kill me!”, “My Ears Are Bleeding!”, “Please Pass the Blood of the Innocents”, “Follow the Teachings of the Buddha”, “Your Anger Pleases Me”, “Cthulhu is Friend to All Children”, “Have a nice day, then fuck off”, “Arctic Weasel! Schnitzl!”. A pale orange/yellow one says, “Urine Gelato”, a half pink, half purple one says “Virgin/ Whore”. One the Lad made proclaims “Succk Cock, Bu3h!” (in the drunkenness, plus not being able to see what one writes in clear wax, he wrote one too many c’s. I guess he really wants Shrub to suck it.). LPG did a very sweet pink one saying, “Welcome to Bland Land!”, and I festooned one with daisies and wrote, in flowing script the previously mentioned, “Shitcock”
I need to look up the rest. I did actually write them all down for posterity. Oh, the shame, the shame. And that was just Friday night. We had 2 full days of sacrilege yet to go. But that will be another entry.
