Let me just say I’m not a fan of the commercialization of holidays, specifically Easter. My house has been filled with eggs, baskets and plethora of bunny like candy for days now. Remember I said I’m not a fan of the holidays, but admit I have a soft spot for the candy. One of the hardest parts of getting ready for Easter is the prohibition of candy until the day of the bunny. If you don’t know me personally, let me just share that I’m not a big holiday person. The only holidays I get excited about is my birthday and Christmas, although for Christmas my excitement doesn’t get going until about 10 minutes before I open up my own gifts.

Selfish as it sounds, I just can’t get excited about spending too much money on a one-day event. I like to blame my wife for much of this, but somehow I get suckered in to the extravaganza of going all out for our kids by buying new outfits, and accessories for these holidays. Just like Halloween where you spend tons of money on costumes and candy for a one-day event, Easter too gets under my skin with the baskets, the grass, the eggs, the pastel church clothes, which usually make my kids cry, and so on.

I’m not a complete scrooge, though. Just this week, I went to Landon’s school and helped hide about what seemed to be about 400 eggs for his kindergarten class to find. Standing proud overlooking the mastery of my hiding expertise I knew I had done well. Then when the teacher let 18 raging six and seven-year-olds out the door with baskets in their hands to find the eggs, I started thinking this holiday was sort of fun. Then after it took the young rugrats all of about 30 seconds to find each and every egg, I once again found myself wondering why all the work. It took me and another parent about 30 minutes to find nooks and crannies to place the candy-filled eggs. I barely had time to blink before each well-planned egg was found.

If I could just skip to the day of the holiday I’d probably be happy and less stressed. Bless my wife’s heart , she’s learned that I don’t want any part of the pre-holiday events. I don’t go shopping for Easter Outfits and seldom participate in the purchase of the kids Easter baskets. But on Friday afternoon I was suckered in to participating in every father’s worse nightmare – the picture with the Easter Bunny.

Melanie was determined to have the girls picture made with the Easter Bunny. My involvement was due to my need to go to the Apple Store for work so I tagged along (yeah right). While waiting in line, the wife decided she needed to pick up something in another store leaving you know who in charge of two beautiful girls who did not want bows in their hair and were long over due a nap. The line moved quickly and before I knew it we were there standing face-to-face with Peter Cottontail. Of course, rather than welcoming the rabbit with open arms, my oldest girl Addy Grace decided that she wanted no part of the furry bunny. Tears began flowing, and a mild to very loud cry came blaring while the photographer tried to snap the photos.

After seeing the photos of Addy Grace crying, sitting beside the Easter Bunny, I realized that she too felt my pain.