So here it is, hipster Christmas
The first time I took my heathen boyfriend to church, it was Easter Sunday.
“Skip straight to the good stuff”, I thought. “God’s greatest hits!” It’d be all daffodils and alleluias and egg hunts round the vestry, nothing too terrifying for an ecclesiastical virgin. It wasn’t until I looked down and saw his white knuckles gripping my hand anxiously halfway through the eucharist that I realised the service was, after all, really quite Goddy — and that my eternally sunny vision of Easter as a kind of peaceful, good smelling, stretchy-pants family calendar occasion just wasn’t a thing for most people.
Which is kind of a shame. Because even if your idea of a top notch April Sunday isn’t getting your groove on to Thine Be The Glory, Easter has so much untapped potential. It is, really, Christmas for hipsters. The abundant spring flowers; the four-day weekend; the kitsch religious iconography. The chance to go gambolling round a farm in an unironic sheepskin jacket. The Easter bonnet, just waiting to step into the breach left by the festival flower crown. And the food, dude. The food.
We’ll start with the eggs, obviously — eggs are such a natural accessory for the pro lifestyler. So flawless in their perfect, simple form that they should be sold in Stoke Newington design shops for £17.99 (all bespoke, no two the same!). And Easter offers up so many different ways to enjoy the egg. Poached, painted, made from artisanal raw cacao, or back to nostalgic basics; as many Cadbury orbs as you can carry to the sofa and scarf before the migraine sets in.
Even now, I can’t eat Dairy Milk without having a misty Proustian flashback to Easter holidays spent in pyjamas in a sofa cushion fort, watching Why Don’t You? from the middle of a heap of purple foil wrappers. The prise-open-or-smash dilemma; the special, tender feelings you have towards The Thick Bit of shell… a £2.99 Easter egg deserves just as much ritual and reverence as your 85% small batch vegan nib bark, don’t @ me.
But chocolate is only the start of it. Let’s consider hot cross buns too, for a moment. Not the bastardised versions, nothing Heston has tried to titivate with bitter herbs and morning dew — just fat, sticky, squishy with raisins and heady with spices, toasted until just before they cross over into burnt, then slicked with salty butter until it almost runs off onto the plate. Hot cross buns have a cool history; they used to be hung in kitchens to prevent fires, and taken to sea as amulets to protect sailors from shipwreck. There’s even a pub in Bromley by Bow with a net of old buns hanging off the ceiling.
Even better: Simnel cake, the Great Divider, since it features the polemic trinity of raisins, candied peel and marzipan. It’s practically in the same category as bone marrow and matcha. If you like Simnel cake, you get to feel incredibly superior about it.
And then there’s lamb. The lamb, guys, which has all the table centrepiece kudos and aromatic appeal of a turkey, but with the benefit of also actually tasting delicious. Think how much nicer the prospect of a week of lamb leftovers is. Not for Easter the four-day-old gristle curry! Fetch some pitta and chilli sauce and have yourself a bank holiday Monday kebab.
But the thing Easter really has to recommend it as your new favourite holiday, if the body of Christ isn’t your bag, is chill in abundance. Easter is the Phoebe to Christmas’ Monica. No massive hyped-up three month social whirlwind, no need to make the whole thing perfect. The pressure is off, your top fly button is undone, and unless you’re Mr Lindt or the Archbishop of Canterbury, there’s not much more on the itinerary than watching The Sound of Music and helping someone’s small child look for some chocolate in a hedge. Easter asks little, but gives so much.
Quick though, get on it now. Before the whole thing goes mainstream.
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Originally written in 2017. Image: Sebastian Staines via Unsplash.
