Fab Friday

It's Good Friday and isn’t that redundant? I mean, seriously, how many Bad Fridays can you think of? Even a boring snoozer, rainy cold Friday is still good because, duh geez, it’s FRIDAY!

While Easter was always my absolute favoritest of holidays, I really did hate the interminable lead up.

I went to Catholic elementary schools where we had to go to Mass on every damned important saint’s day and aren’t they all just fabulously special?

Then, THEN we got to the the long ass haul to Easter.

Lent and what should I, as a good, observant little Catholic girl, give up? Chocolate of course -- that way my Easter bunny would be especially tasty. Anticipation is the best spice.

Palm Sunday meant we were closing in on the bunny. Plus, I loved going to Mass and getting greenery to take home and present to my stuffed animals.

Next were the dreaded Stations of the Cross.

The Stations of the Cross originated in pilgrimages to Jerusalem.

As Catholicism spread around the world like wildfire, Dengue fever and swarms of killer bees all put together, doing the Jerusalem pilgrimage proved to be just too damned onerous.
AND:

The Stations originated in medieval Europe when wars prevented Christian pilgrims from visiting the Holy Land. European artists created works depicting scenes of Christ's journey to Calvary. The faithful installed these sculptures or paintings at intervals along a procession route, inside the parish church or outdoors. Performing the devotion meant walking the entire route, stopping to pray at each "station."

Why did I hate going through this? The priest droned on endlessly, always in a monotone—he recited with all the interest and excitement of someone tasked with reading the Bronx phone book. Us kiddles were shepherded from spot to spot, not allowed to get close enough to see the paintings or carvings and nothing was explained in a way that we could wrap our minds around.

For Bast’s sake, how fun or inspiring could this possibly be for an eight year old?

But then came Easter Midnight Mass! I loved this for so many reasons. The church lit only by candlelight, the fancy, bright colored vestments the priests were voguing, the smell of incense coming from the swinging thurible (Thurible—sounds like a cool punk rock band name, eh?) as the fancy man paraded down the main aisle. There was all that pomp and pageantry AND I was allowed to stay up late (!!!) like a big person!

My mother made quite the fuss on the day of. We all got big baskets filled with a huge, solid chocolate bunny, tiny foiled wrapped candy eggs, peeps and a treasure map (drawn by Mommy though she always told me it was the bunny's art). The map led us to more eggs (chocolate and brightly colored hard boiled ones), a brandy new stuffed animal and, ultimately, our special Easter dresses.

Later we’d sit down for a meal of baked ham and potatoes with large, butter slathered pieces of my mother’s freshly baked and braided, hot Easter bread for dessert.

Flash forward—Donna’s living in Boston, doesn’t have the dough to fly home and is SO missing that basket with chocolates, peeps and even the nasty ass cellophane grass. I wrote a letter to the Easter Bunny, giving "him" my new address—allowing that I’d moved and was concerned he wouldn’t know where I was. Then I mailed it to mia madre.

The basket arrived at my Kenmore Square hovel on Good Friday.

Oh yes that was a good Friday indeed!