The Christmas message is one of goodwill to all. Easter, on the other hand, is more about wet camping and chocolate-induced psychosis. In fact, Easter is a lot like daylight savings; each year it stretches out further and further. It is a period of time much like the cosmic elastic in the great interstellar underpants of the Universe that forever threatens to take over the entire twelve months. Before the Yuletide tinsel has been packed back in its cardboard box, buns and eggs start appearing. For many, it’s a time to cherish. For me, it’s a painful reminder that I am wholly and utterly without the slightest skerrick of self-control. Or, at least, I am wholly without self-control when compared with my brother. But there’s an upside, though.
The Christmas message is one of goodwill to all. Easter, on the other hand, is more about wet camping and chocolate-induced psychosis. In fact, Easter is a lot like daylight savings; each year it stretches out further and further. It is a period of time much like the cosmic elastic in the great interstellar underpants of the Universe that forever threatens to take over the entire twelve months. Before the Yuletide tinsel has been packed back in its cardboard box, buns and eggs start appearing. For many, it’s a time to cherish. For me, it’s a painful reminder that I am wholly and utterly without the slightest skerrick of self-control. Or, at least, I am wholly without self-control when compared with my brother. But there’s an upside, though.
In a ‘Mission Impossible’ sense, Easter takes some beating. Father Christmas only needed to make it as far as the tree in the living room before dumping the presents and scoffing the milk and biscuits. Whereas the Easter Bunny – cunning creature that he is – succeeds in sneaking into your room and leaving a brightly coloured egg on the dresser. This is especially impressive when you consider that rabbits don’t have fingers. Try opening a door with a clenched fist and you might begin to understand that this is no ordinary bunny. Only the Tooth Fairy has a tougher job and word is that she’s considering a move to Direct Debit.
Most kids want to devour their eggs instantly. The coloured foil is defoliated and the contents swallowed as near enough to whole as is possible. I was no different to any other child, I guess. However, just as surely as my voracious appetite would ensure that my Easter eggs had a lifespan of less than ten minutes, my brother Cameron would do all that he could to resist. Brightly coloured foil would remain undisturbed. Nary a morsel of chocolate would pass his lips. On one level it was an act of extraordinary self-control. But it wasn’t motivated by a desire to eat well. Rather, he was inspired by something far darker.
My brother’s wellspring of malevolence was such that he would hoard his Easter chocolate for one reason and one reason only – power. As the rest of us sat amongst the ruins of our Easter bounty; all torn foil and dark smudges in the corner of our mouths, Cam would pick up his eggs and hide them somewhere in his room. At various intervals in the following decade, he would produce an egg after dinner and proceed to eat it in front of the rest of us. He would do so slowly, methodically and, generally, with a pair of tweezers that ensured the whole thing moved at a glacial speed. It was agony.
The Easter Bunny doesn’t deliver his wares to me anymore. Whether it’s because I’m older or that the poor varmint despaired at how quickly I consumed something that he’d been making for the best of part of a year, I couldn’t say. So instead of having chocolate treats delivered to my dresser, I now have to go out and purchase Easter eggs for other people. This means selecting appropriate confectionary orbs for my ever-expanding family. It’s an exercise fraught with danger. I used to get in early – no sooner was the partridge and accompanying pear-tree been packed away for another year and I was out buying Easter eggs. This meant there was never a problem in terms of supply. It also meant that I was shopping in the height of summer and there was a substantial risk that the entire bounty might melt and form one huge sugary puddle. But not this year. Instead of buying early and paying full price, I was urged to wait until Easter Sunday to pick eggs up at a discount. Let me say now that this approach defied my every instinct – natural, unnatural and even supernatural.
We arrived at a large department store at about eleven o’clock. Foolishly, I thought we’d arrive to find a ghost town. But it soon became obvious that the early bird not only gets the worm, he also gets a fifty percent discount. We were not the only ones wanting to pick up a little marked down confectionary. It was a madhouse. Hoards of anxious shoppers descended on a small section of metal shelving like Piranhas who have just finished the 40-hour Famine, stripping them of anything resembling either an egg or a rabbit. Given the contents of some of the trolleys, it was clear that some people had decided to make this a once in a lifetime event and were stocking up for every Easter between now and doomsday. There were elbows, there was pushing in and there was rudeness on an unimaginable scale. But then my wife pointed out that I was the only one acting in such a brazenly high-handed manner and sent me to the menswear section for ‘time out’. I deserved as much.
Eventually, we emerged with the Easter eggs, if not our dignity, intact. I was still recovering from the entire trauma when we visited my brother that night for dinner. Over some Chinese takeaway, Cam found the whole thing amusing. Then he disappeared for a moment, only to emerge with a bowl full of Easter eggs. From just a glance, I could tell they were vintage. ‘1979’, he said, pushing them forward. ‘A very good year.’ Any year where eggs appear on your dresser is a good year indeed.