Today is Easter.

When I was a little kid, that meant it would have been the third most exciting morning of the year, following Christmas morning and that of my birthday.

My siblings and I would look for the Easter baskets the Easter Bunny had hidden around our house the night before, and then hunt for the little chocolate, foil-wrapped eggs he had hidden around the house before our dog Jacoby sniffed them out and ate them all (You know, neither chocolate nor tinfoil are supposed to be very good for dogs; Jacoby must have had a stomach like a robotic goat).

Then I'd be dressed in a powder blue, polyester-y little suit with a clip-on bow tie, and go to Sunday morning mass, followed by dinner with my extended family, consisting of ham, lasagna, cracker meal or wedding soup, and a variety of bizarre (to me) seasonal pies: rice pie, meat pie and Farina pie.

Now I'm a grown-up, as well as a non-practicing Catholic and a vegetarian, which strips away pretty much everything that was once special and significant about the day. And I live far away from my family, so I'm not even spending the day with my littlest relatives and relations, watching them look for baskets or turn up their noses at rice and meat pies.

This is how I celebrate Easter now. By listening to an album about a radical ancient hippie who changed the course of world history for both good and ill when he martyred himself for a cause, completely boning his friend and fellow poverty activist Judas in the process...

...while blogging about children's picture books involving rabbits.

Rabbit related content to follow shortly; in the meantime, please enjoy the hymn above, and ponder the theological implications of a disco-themed heaven.