
Well what can you expect from a holiday that has no
fixed date; in fact bases the date of the holiday as the first Sunday following
the full moon after the Spring Equinox?
This can vary from mid-March to mid-April in the current calendar. We sometimes forget that the Resurrection
happened when we had an earlier calendar.
I find the whole subject of calendars interesting. One of my favorite
jokes deals with the fact that this year marks the 5684th year of
the Jewish calendar and the 4721st year of the Chinese
calendar. Which means there were 973
years when the Jews had to do without Chinese takeout.
But I digress.


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Easter Parade - 1900 |
The custom of new clothes for Easter goes back a
long ways, somehow tied to the Resurrection itself, with white or a bright Pastel
being the predominant choice of color.
The New York Parade, which began as an event where church-goers would
travel from church to church to see the garlands of flowers marking the holiday,
dressed in the latest fashion, became a popular ritual near the turn of the
last century, with the less fortunate gathering on the curbs to see what the
wealthy were wearing.
In my case it was an occasion to buy something new
and nice to wear when we shed our winter overcoats as spring emerged from the
Iowa winter. Mary remembers pretty much
the same. So perhaps it is that we have
no serious change of clothes in our California climate. Or maybe it is that we have become jaded to
anything new, since we buy clothes more or less from need rather than from
choice, choosing from a change in style or size rather than from occasion.
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Easter Parade - 2007 |
In some ways I think that is a shame. Dressing for Easter made the celebration more
special somehow. And dressing up with
new clothes was just one of the traditions.
There was the Easter meal: ham when I was growing up, later lamb and
now, with at least one of my relatives, traditional turkey. Hunting for the baskets, of course, and
coloring eggs (how else would you know which basket was yours?)
But less and less the parade.
In 2007 there were close to 50,000 spectators in New
York. This year less than 7,000. Whether it is less envy of the wealthy,
greater variance in class distinction, younger money, or a desire for anonymity
of the privileged class: something has changed the dynamic.
Still and all, the songs from the movie are ageless.
In my next post I’ll revisit a longtime topic of
interest, since it seems to be getting a lot of recent press. Come visit for a current look at Oral Cancer.
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