Starbucks faced consumer pushback a few years back when, in the name of “inclusivity,” it started featuring red and green coffee cups in December while scrupulously omitting the word “Christmas.” Sometimes the cups added “Happy Holidays,” but often they were just generic expressions of the dread Christmas color binary.
The same thing is happening with Easter.
Go to your local supermarket or other store and take a look at the “Easter” assortment. How many times do you see the word “Easter” on the packaging? How often is it missing completely?
I bet you will see a clear “outcomes-based disparity.”
Regardless, the motivations in both cases are the same: to profit from Christian-origin holidays without mentioning Christianity. The goal is to make money with enough allusions to those holidays without actually invoking their dread names.
After all, why do Starbucks red-and-green coffee cups disappear in January? And why will the generic “eggs” you’re being sold this week be marked down 50% on April 21? If they’re not “Easter eggs,” wouldn’t they be just as chocolaty delicious on, say, September 21? And if the Paas “egg decorating kit” isn’t an Easter thing, why aren’t you able to find it on the shelf in June? Given the price of eggs, it seems some people might want to celebrate them with a touch of color all year long.
The truth is that these are “Easter” eggs, “Easter” egg decoration kits, and “Easter” candies (as well as “Easter rabbits,” since you won’t find them around on All Saints Day). Their manufacturers are happy to get Christians’ money, but without mentioning the Christians’ holidays. To ensure “inclusivity,” however, Cadbury is explicitly marketing non-Easter “Rainbow Eggs”. Last time I checked, Noah didn’t mention any eggs—although he had a better chance with a dove than with a mammal rabbit (cf Gen 8:8-12).
Nor is this an equal discrimination phenomenon. We just finished Ramadan, which, in a certain sense, doesn’t seem celebratory. Before we saw a passel of politicians and pastors falling over themselves to wish a “Happy Ramadan!” did anyone think of saying, “Happy Lent?” or “Have a great Good Friday?” But we saw the media, public officials, and even cardinals proclaiming Ramadan wishes not just once but repeatedly, while even kings were packing dates for evening eats.
Nor do stores hide their “Passover” selections. Granted, the market is smaller and delicacies like dry matzoh crackers and horseradish are acquired tastes, but nobody renames their offerings for our Jewish brethren (even if they give them less prominence so as not to offend the boycott-and-divestment anti-Semites). If producers did not hide the Jewish identity of their Passover-centric products for a smaller market, why are they hiding the “Easter” identity of products being sold for a bigger market on its central feast day?
Decades ago, the term “war on Christmas” was coined as shorthand for the woke effort to co-opt Noel while avoiding its name. “Christmas” became the holiday that dare not speak its name.
As I’ve noted often, over the years, Easter is an even more endangered Christian holiday because of its increasing “invisibility.” What do I mean?
Christmas, fixed on December 25, is hard to ignore. It is too set into Western culture to be avoided. It is too big a consumer spree to be ignored. But it is also too Christian to be acknowledged. So, it turns into “winter holiday” and a “happy holiday,” but its external trappings–lights, “holiday” trees, and even creche scenes–are somehow co-opted by the larger, “disestablished” culture.
Easter doesn’t have that same footprint. Its moveability means that, at best, it acquires a calendrical “target range” rather than a niche. Good Friday, once observed as a holiday in many states, has increasingly become just another workday. (Consider how many parishes have moved the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion from its traditional 3 pm slot until later in the evening to accommodate that fact). Easter, always a Sunday, can be ignored: wish somebody a “nice weekend” on Good Friday and see them on Monday, just like the other 51 weekends of the year.
And the Easter “market” is a shadow of its Christmas counterpart: nobody incurs massive credit card debt over plastic bunnies, candy eggs, and some straw. Easter “bonnets” long ago disappeared with the general “slumming down” of even “holiday” couture. How many people still buy their kids new outfits for Easter?
No, Easter can safely be ignored. Which is why its omission from even the few trinkets that afford public cultural visibility to its presence–“eggs” and their coloring dyes and kids’ “rabbits”—should be even more offensive. It’s an attempt to erase an already anemic public presence.
It wouldn’t be a bad thing to write to people who want our money–Cadbury, Paas, Lindt, and Hershey’s–and ask why they are ashamed of calling their products “Easter” eggs. Or perhaps it is an entrepreneurial opportunity for Christians to take back the market for their products.
Easter is the central solemnity of the Christian faith. Without it, as St. Paul remarks (1 Cor 15:2), Christians might as well pack it up. Yet, in a nation still ostensibly majority Christian, Easter’s public visibility is pale, its resonance in the larger culture fading.
I’m not identifying Easter with trinkets like Easter candy or rabbits, but I’m also not willing to dissociate them. Easter eggs, after all, have Christian origins, reminding us of Christ breaking out of the tomb and of their return to the table after traditionally having been among Lent’s forbidden foods.
At least we still have an “Easter Egg Roll” at the White House. How long before that becomes a generic “egg roll” with the opposition party turning it into talking points on the price of a dozen?
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Perhaps culture is becoming more honest (less
hypocritical) in not acknowledging something in which they don’t believe. Being marginalized is not necessarily a bad thing. They are acknowledging that we are different. Our differentness should stand out and give us greater definition. We no longer blend in with the blah. We are Christians and we use the word “Easter” It is OUR word precisely because we believe. Let’s claim it and use it!
Let’s claim and use it, yes. But does that mean that we concede to secularization, a kind of “Benedictine Option” burrow in our ghetto holes? No. Like Christmas, “claiming” it means disputing the dominance of the cheap imitation the secular culture wants to foist as a Doppelganger in lieu of the real McCoy.
Yes it reflects the erasure of Christ and the Christian witness within our culture. It marks a deep, paradigmatic change within the person who comprises the culture. He now pays homage, if not precisely to himself as a self proclaimed god who determines right and wrong, to some ephemeral fad.
Here the disappearance of little colorful things like Easter eggs [and to think I’ve always disliked the Easter egg hunts after Easter Sunday Mass until I read Grondelski’s article] marks deep darkness within. We’re on the express and hardly anyone’s taking notice of the places whizzing by.
The substitution thingy! The day might come when Easter and Earth Day fall on the same day! Or, when Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day are rescheduled to fall in the middle of our inclusively celebratory gay pride Month, or whatever. Waiting to see how many gummint buildings still fly (so to speak) the rainbow banner this year…
At least Wall Street still closes for Good Friday. Praise God.
Cadbury seems to have been founded by a devout Quaker family, bought by Kraft, then more recently purchased by a conglomerate. The original Cadbury family might have responded to Christians’ requests to reconnect Easter to their chocolate eggs but I’m guessing an international conglomerate is less likely to listen. It’s worth a try though. Who knows?
(Cadbury still mentions Easter here & there on their website.)
The weekly ad of the Kroger grocery company for this week contains the word ‘Easter’ about five times in five pages; i.e., “Easter Fun Starts Here” and “Fresh Finds for Your Easter Table” and “Bake Lasting Easter Memories.”
I do not recall seeing “Lent” in their ads for the week of Ash Wednesday, but in prior years I do recall that they had fish on sale and adverted it during Lent.
Also, their ad had notices about Easter in the traditional lilac/light purple tones. I liked that…
Thank you meiron. That’s good to hear.
We have signage outside local restaurants that they offer Lenten selections. Even Chick Fil A has fish sandwiches here on Fridays in Lent. (I wish it was every Friday. )
PS, I just looked at the weekly grocery store ads that came in the mail yesterday & all 4 stores have “Happy Easter” on their circulars. Even the Family Dollar Store ad had “Happy Easter”. So there’s hope.
🙂
Wait just a minute, John!
Haven’t the internet experts taught you anything?
Easter is a pagan holiday. It’s named after a Germanic goddess. Or maybe a Syrian goddess. At any rate Ostara Eggs and bunnies are about fertility. It’s about Spring and welcoming back the sun. Let’s face it; Christians appropriated it from the pagans. Everybody knows it. Facebreak tells us so.
What? That’s all been disproven? That can’t be. Why it was on Twittle just this morning. Father even told us so at the Memorial Meal. (I took home a bit of bread so I’d remember.)
+ + +
It’s no surprise that the lies are rampant and spread through the internet. The Father of Lies hates Easter and the internet is no bastion of truth. Even Christians, and God forgive them, priests and bishops peddle the lies.
There is a war on everything Christian and Catholic. Our foes are not only unbelievers but believers as well. It’s time to man up and fight. It’s not the woke we have to answer to, it’s God, and answer we will. Woe to them who side with the enemy.
It looks like President Trump and the First Lady might agree with your sentiments, Dr. Grondelski. Cf., the link below:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/04/presidential-message-on-holy-week-2025/
Compare that last year to “Catholic” Joe Biden reminding us to mark Easter 2024 as “International Trans Day of Visibility.”
That just ruined my lunch.
Wow!
There are people incarcerated in El Salvador prisons!
I was a stranger and you deported me
As my now 87 year old former political science professor mentor (who is a devout Christian) from woke Swarthmore College wrote me, after I forwarded him President Trump’s message and suggested perhaps the Holy Spirit had found our President to serve God’s purposes:
“Yes. This must be the most authentic and complete public statement of the Christian Gospel ever made by a President of the United States. Let us hope the Holy Spirit will guide President Trump in his words, decisions, and deeds in the future, all the more so since the future is arriving quickly.”
I’m curious what Dr. Grondelski thinks of the current proposal to make Easter Monday a federal holiday. As for the Easter candy, I used to stock up a couple of weeks after Easter at 75-90% off, but as I grow older and need to mind my health more than before, I can’t indulge in that the way I used to, even though I’d make the candy last until Christmas, when I could stock up again after New Years’ Day.
I welcome it. In almost all of Europe, esp. Catholic Europe, Easter (and Christmas) are two day civil holidays. In federal practice, a federal holiday falling on Sunday is observed on Monday. This bill would do well to restore visibility to the central Christian holiday.
My family in the UK always are surprised that we have to work on Easter Monday in the States. They take for granted that it’s a holiday.
I can assume that last year we read about the Trans-Easter hosted by the Bidens. Remember that, Dr. Grondelski? I’ll take simple rolling pastel eggs on the White House lawn any day to that insanity. Frankly I don’t remember hand-wringing by Catholic professors a year ago. Could be wrong on that. And anyway, what difference does it make for us Christians whether non-believers acknowledge the Risen Lord or not? None! Let’s celebrate the Paschal mystery anyway.
Why aren’t you this pissy about people being forced to work on Sundays? Why does only Easter Sunday count? If the Sabbath is to be kept Holy, perhaps the author can extend his whining to the fact that since the 80s, nearly all businesses and shops are open on Sundays now when they used to be closed. If you can’t find the time to get your groceries and run your errands Mon – Saturday, that is entirely your problem and your fault. Sunday should be God’s day yet we all seem to be willing to overlook that fact to worship at the altar of capitalism on Sundays.
Furthermore, I would like to see more people take aim at secular couples and their secular “weddings.” If it’s not Catholic, they have no right to call it a marriage and they have even less right to have their relationship acknowledged as such. Just because the couple is 1 man and 1 woman does not mean they aren’t garbage secular sinners who need to be reminded of this fact at every opportunity.
I would like to see more Catholics lead with anger and hatred.
Anger & hatred isn’t a good look for Christian leadership.
I have written a lot on the loss of Sunday. You can’t do everything all the time. That said, Easter is distinctive; it should not be lost. And none of my comments are fired by “hatred.”
Nicole appears to have a classic case of projection.
“I would like to see more Catholics lead with anger and hatred.”
You seem to be doing a pretty good job of that in your bitter posts.
Here in Canada our Advance Polls for the Federal Election are: Good Friday, Holy Saturday, EASTER SUNDAY, and Easter Monday. I could hardly believe it’s come to this!