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Easter is not so easy anymore

By RONDA RICH

Easter, like Christmas, is getting complicated. Too complicated, if you ask me to put in my two jellybeans’ worth.

For the past several years, I have had enormous trouble finding a decent Easter outfit, not to mention matching hat, shoes and purse.

This trouble is compounded due to the fact that I can’t get Dixie Dew’s outfit until I have mine because, heaven knows, we must match for the annual Easter parade at my sister Louise’s house.

After all, my brother-in-law videos it and if Dew’s collar or dress doesn’t match mine, then it is recorded for posterity and I don’t want the precious little dachshund remembered for being less than perfectly coordinated.

Then there is dealing with Louise who is the Martha Stewart of our family and Nicole, my niece, who is Martha, Jr. The pressure these two put on the rest of us for when we host the family is nothing short of incredible.

When I was a kid, we came home to a simple, nothing-special-kind of Easter dinner, though Mama did always pull out the good china. But for Louise, who always hosts Easter lunch now, it is like stepping into the pages of Southern Living.

Bunnies, baskets, jelly beans, pastel linens, flowers, Christopher Radko Easter ornaments, themed china and crystal, colored eggs and other elaborate decorations. It is despairing.

Louise works from Christmas to Easter to prepare perfectly for the event. Then, it takes her until Memorial Day to take down all the decorations. What else, though, would you expect from a woman who puts up seven Christmas trees including two in bathrooms?

I, however, am lucky to make it there on time with the food that I have been instructed to bring. Itis usually something simple like a casserole and dessert because Louise doesn’t want to entrust anything important to me.

“You’re just not very domesticated, are you?” she’ll ask with a bit of an indulgent smile.

“I am when I choose to be,” I’ll reply.

“When would that be?”

“At a time I choose.”

These complications, however, are nothing compared to the complications of going to church. Which, of course, is the point of Easter in the first place.

I’m telling you — it’s getting so hard to go to church on Easter Sunday that I’m thinking of building my own church just for Easter and Christmas Eve.

First, you can’t find a parking place if you don’t arrive at least 30 minutes before service begins.

I have a policy about church: Be on time but don’t be too early. No need to sit still and be quiet any longer than absolutely necessary.

Second, you can’t find a seat. You especially can’t find your seat. I’m Baptist and everyone knows that Baptists are very proprietary about our seats. Our Christian values do not extent to forgiving those who take our personally assigned seats. It taxes the Christian spirit.

This year I have a new dilemma: Where to go to church. I already had enough Easter dilemmas what with clothes and Martha clones closing in on me. Now, I have to figure out where I’m going to church because 11 a.m. service is so crowded that you either have to pry yourself into the pew or stand.

On Easter, there is no 8:30 a.m. service at my church, which I discovered last year only after arriving splendidly attired in the pouring rain, so I can’t outsmart the crowd.

I don’t know what to do.

I guess I’ll just have to eat a few pastel colored jellybeans and think about it. How did Easter Sunday get so complicated?

I liked it much better when I only had to worry about finding hidden Easter eggs.