To Southern divas, Easter is a big deal

It just goes to show how big Easter is to the women of the South.

Our group of Dixie Divas, which has about 25 members, voted a couple of years ago to choose a meeting date and stick with it. No changes allowed. That was the firm mandate. So we selected the first Saturday of every other month. Since that time, nothing has been big enough or important enough to change the date.

Then along comes Easter.

Before our meeting in February, my godmother, who begins planning for Easter the day after New Year’s, asked, “What are you going to do about the April meeting since it’s the day before Easter?”

I blinked. I was hosting the event and though I don’t plan for months for Easter, I knew the date of Easter.

“Easter is the second Sunday. Our meeting is the first Saturday.”

“Right,” she nodded. “And the first Saturday is the day before the second Sunday. There’s five Sundays in April.”

Great. Now, we had a dilemma. But, honestly, I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal. We’d stick with the Diva date that is written in our bylaws.

Wrong.

Turns out that the day before Easter is as big to our ladies as the Big E itself.

“We have an Easter egg hunt for the kids,” one said.

“I’ll be cooking for Easter lunch,” another offered.

“We’re helping do breakfast following sunrise service so I have to work at the church to get ready,” someone else said.

“I just can’t make it,” most said. “Too much to do.”

And that’s how it came about that our much hallowed by-laws were temporarily suspended and our regular first-Saturday-of-every-other-month was moved to the last Saturday of March.

Because Easter for Southern women is a big deal.

Why is it so huge in the South? The easy answer is that we’re the Bible Belt and that’s that. Anything pertaining to the good Lord is critical to us.

But there’s more to it than that. Southern women love traditions and celebrations, especially those that revolve around home and family. If there’s an opportunity to cook a delicious meal and bring the family together, we’re there before you can whistle Dixie.

Then, there’s the clothes. The new dresses, shoes, purses and hats. Hanes Hosiery, based in Winston-Salem, N.C., knows the importance of their product for women and their new spring clothes. So, they put Hanes on sale for Easter.

The children aren’t to be forgotten for they are as joyous at Easter as at Christmas. We have several young ones in our family now so it is an undeniable treat to see them toting pastel-colored Easter baskets bigger than they are and admire the small boys in short pants and knee socks and the little girls in white tights and black patent shoes.

And we Southern women love children dressed in their Sunday best, especially when they have a smudge of chocolate egg across their chubby cheeks.

We always have an Easter parade at my sister’s house and even Dixie Dew dresses in her best and parades across the veranda and down the steps, prancing happily as my brother-in-law films and adds his sometimes funny, sometimes unnecessary commentary.

Yes, for Southern women, Easter is a weekend-long celebration. Now, on the other hand, men don’t see it as we do. The Masters, golf’s most prestigious tournament, is hosted in Augusta, Ga., every second weekend in April. Easter or not. Unlike the Divas, it doesn’t matter if that weekend falls on Easter.

That is, of course, because men are running Augusta National. But, if a Southern woman were in charge, she’d move the date. She’d know that Easter’s bigger.

I think the ratings – at least in the South – are higher.