Eggs in Three Baskets

Holidays like Easter leave someone without a religion a little at a loss. It still matters, it is still an exceptional day, but it's difficult to say how much or why. Like most holidays, it usually boils down to a seasonally expected combination of food dishes and family gathering. With Easter, I think of lots of chocolate, something good baked by my mom, and some limp ham, rolls, and mashed potatoes we used to eat at my Granny's place. Which was then followed by lots of chocolate: Irish tradition dictated more desserts than people at the table. The excitement of these desserts, and the loveliness of a basket of goodies, consistently overwhelmed my curiousity of the particularities of a day devoted to celebrating a large bunny with a preference for pastel eggs. To be honest, I still don't get the logic, and I am still more interested in whatever my mom baked.

Then in college I got the chance to celebrate Passover with friends. Celebrating Passover is a wonderful experience, I think in general, but also from the perspective of an atheist. Passover has a script! Unlike Easter, which surely takes some understanding derived from countless Sundays spent in pews, Passover has a great narrative, tells you what to say and when and explains each part. It even tells you when to drink, and tells you to drink often enough, that you end up drunk by the end. With that drunkenness also comes a strange satisfaction that I don't experience with Christian holidays; a feeling of having fully completed a celebration; of having reached a destination, with fellow revelers, to the end of the story.

Attempting both celebrations whenever possible may seem like enough for one atheist, until I stumbled upon a third way to honor the season today. Apparently, Norwegians celebrate Easter by gorging themselves on... crime stories. According to this article:

Sales of crime books jump around 500 percent in the week leading up to Easter, estimates bookshop chain Tanum, while television and radio programmers schedule back-to-back thrillers over the Easter break, which in Norway lasts 5-1/2 days.

...Nobody knows when the Norwegian tradition of crime telling at Easter began, but their warrior ancestors -- the Vikings -- were renowned for raiding trips to the British Isles.

On their return the Vikings would settle down with flasks of mead, an alcoholic drink made from honey, and recount tales of murder and pillage to their women and children.

So, admittedly, this is a bit creepy. But still a celebration I can easily participate in- so excuse me while I go get a crime novel, some chocolate, some matzah, and some cheap red wine- it's holiday time.