happy easter monday

Happy Easter Monday! That's right, Easter Monday. Today is a holiday for many people in the world, from those living in Albania to those Zimbabwe. Did you know this? I didn't. I thought Easter Monday was observed only by Catholic countries as a reason to extend the holy-day weekend one more day or, for secular or merely nominally Catholic countries, a reason to have a nice, long four-day weekend.

My personal experience with Easter Monday extends only as far as a trip to Europe when, for one long weekend, every hotel was hugely expensive (or completely booked) and every museum closed. Fine if you have friends who own a villa and you didn't want to see Michael Angelo's "David" that much anyway. Not fine if you are trapped in a pricey youth hostel with nowhere to go! So my knowledge about Easter Monday was very limited--until I did a little looking into it. Here's what I found.

Easter Monday rituals focus on so-called secular festivities, whereas, traditionally Easter Sunday observance focuses on spiritual concerns. For example, over the weekend the mood at the White House was spiritually centered, with church being the main event. Today, however, it was all about whimsey and fun. The White House held its largest public event of the year in its annual Easter Egg Roll. This event is quite historical (dating to the 19th century) and is the only time children, or anyone else for that matter, are allowed to use the White House lawn for play. And it's certainly the only time you're going to see a president hugging a life-sized rabbit.

Easter Monday has other names in other locales, but is just as whimsical. It is called Dyngus Day or Wet Monday in places as diverse as the country of Poland, Buffalo, NY, South Bend, IN, and much of the state of North Dakota. Dyngus Day or Wet Monday is celebrated all kinds of ways: dumping water on other people, especially those you might be interested in dating (!), going to baseball games, drinking beer, eating hot dogs and even hitting others on the legs with a switch! Weird, huh! The traditions on this day got started when people in Catholic countries started pouring water on each other the day after Easter to symbolize a blessing from the holy water that came from the day before. And then things evolved from there. The point has always been, it seems, to let Easter be Easter (focus on the Resurrection of Christ) and then let Monday be a play day, with the water dumping, games and hot dogs, etc, etc.

So as we sit at work and school today some people are having a good 'ole time. While I'm not so naive as to think that all those partiers went to church yesterday, the idea of focusing fully on the Resurrection on Sunday and then doing goofy egg hunts, throwing parties, and even doing silly dating games on Monday, strikes me as a good idea. I've always felt very uneasy about giving Jesus and the Easter Bunny equal time.

Thoughts?