I thought it must be a new ‘thing’, but I’ve done a bit of googling and people have been saying “Happy Easter’ for a number of years I’m sure I’ve never come across it before but I had an email from the BBC the other day that said it and a relative came to see us yesterday and it was the first thing they said. I feel uncomfortable enough when I get wished a merry Xmas and I’ve grown up with that. I’m not religious (more anti religion if anything!) and I’m not a child about to go on an egg hunt so what is the point in the greeting unless the intention was to make me feel uncomfortable? Just a simple hello would have been far better. Please don’t let it spread.
Polite “Happy Easter” request
I always wish people a happy pancake day on shrove Tuesday. I’m hilarious.
I was talking about this the other day, and I remember some Eastertide TV programme with Mel and Sue which ended with them shouting ‘Happy Easter!’ Down the lens. It was about 20 years ago, and I’m sure I had never heard it before.
See also toasted hot cross buns. I’m quite confident that I had never heard of toasted hot cross buns before this year. I have no problem with the idea; I’ve tried it and they’re delicious. The thing is that everywhere I looked there seems to be an assumption that everyone toasts them and that this has been the default way of serving them since they were invented. Except no one let me in in the secret until 2019.
I have never eaten a Hot Cross Bun any way other than toasted.
Don’t you start. I’m starting to suspect the knowledge has deliberately been kept from me for more than 50 years.
There’s a clue in the name 😉
Only since being with Mrs M has an untoasted HCB passed my lips or even my consciousness.
HCBs, like mince pies, are freely available all year round. I only recently discovered that.
Nor me @Carl – in fact if they are not toasted they would more than likely taste like shite.
And just to be radical I eat them all the year round – otherwise known as toasted teacakes. The cross is there for decoration unless you are a God botherer of course
It’s just words though, isn’t it. It means whatever you choose it to mean. If you want it to be religious then it is, if not then it isn’t. At least you’ve been wished a ‘happy’ something. Things could be a lot worse.
And as for just discovering that Hot Cross Buns are meant to be toasted – seriously? You didn’t know? They are delicious, and have been around for as long as I can remember, and that’s a very long time.
The stodgy hot cross buns from our local supermarket are really only edible if toasted. The ones from the french bakery on the other hand are four times the price but it would be a crime to toast those beauties
Well no one told me! I agree that they’re delicious. Look at my post above if you don’t believe me. I must have missed a meeting somewhere along the line and only just caught up again.
I don’t really care what it means, my point is that I’m uncomfortable having it addressed to me because I don’t want to reciprocate because it must seems plain daft to me and it may mean something to somebody that I hadn’t intended. Yesterday I greeted someone at the door with a cheery “Hello” and they said it to me. As this is new to me, I felt uncomfortable because I didn’t know if not reciprocating would offend.
Why would you feel a need to reciprocate when it was you started the interaction by saying your cheery “hello”.
Job done, you can move on with maybe just a nod.
Ignore it and move on.
It is not important.
AW T-shirt
Bah -!. I say “Happy Easter” to lots of folks. It’s a long weekend, a time for hanging out with the fam, lovely weather here in Sydney – it’s a happy time and I hope you are all enjoying it as much as I am. Like Christmas, Easter goes back to pre-Christian times and is associated, at least in the Northern Hemisphere with new birth and an end to winter. Seems like a good reason to smile. Here’s a pagan easter song that literally makes me cry with happiness.
Nor me @Carl – in fact if they are not toasted they would more than likely taste like shite.
And just to be radical I eat them all the year round – otherwise known as toasted teacakes. The cross is there for decoration unless you are a God botherer of course.
Heard someone say it yesterday lunchtime . I was queuing in the local Nisa for chocolate and beer. The guy who said it had two packs of lard in his hand.
Well he’s definitely going to have a happy easter.
I found out recently that you can use lard as a cooking aid too. Fair made my day.
What! Here’s me frying my chips in KY jelly…..like a FOOL.
OK… this has gone too far now! You should never, under any circumstances, fry (or cook in any way) a fool. They should be eaten straight out of the fridge.
Straight out of the fridge? Somebody’s been watching Beat Girl…
I reciprocate if wished it, but find it a bit weird. Having grown up in a very religious household I always found it more of a religious time than Christmas except there was chocolate. But I did enjoy the 4 day weekend which now, for me, in Canada is only 3 days (US gets no time off at all).
In the US doesn’t it vary state to state? My offices were closed Friday byt not today.
It’s different for public sector workers. When I worked for a private company in New York I didn’t get it off (unless I took a vacation day), and colleagues in California, Oregon and Washington states were working last Fri (and today).
I suspect most people are just hoping you have a happy time over the holiday and use ‘Easter’ to describe the period of time over four days rather than a religious event. I’m sure no one is winding you up or trying to make you feel uncomfortable. Frankly, in these fractured times, it’s good that people wish each other well in any shape or form, I’d have thought?
I’m sure it’s not supposed to make me uncomfortable but I’m just saying that it does. I think is rather believe that people generally wanted everyone to be happy as much as possible so it shouldn’t need to be said. I’ve got 4 days off, why wouldn’t I be happy?….. although it is a bit of a pain the shops aren’t open one of those days so DIY needs a bit more planning!
From the latest Viz, before anyone else points out the resemblance This was one of the clues which led me to deduce that everyone else had been toasting hot cross buns behind my back.
Is it really just me? Please tell me others never knew that toasting hot cross buns was common practice?
Well surely you’ve heard of Toasted Tea Cakes. They’re pretty much the same thing.
Well we’ve all heard stories. In retrospect the word ‘hot’ might have been a clue.
Of course they are better toasted (unless fresh from the oven).
I mean it’s three words. Hot. Cross. Bun. While not completely ruling out the possibility that they’re intended to be spicy, angry teacakes, on the balance of probability, isn’t it fairly obvious they’re supposed to be toasted?
Well I know that now. What I can’t understand is why I have never seen, been served, had suggested to me a toasted hot cross bun before 2019, despite being familiar with them for around half a century. It turns out everyone else knew so I can only put it down to some kind of conspiracy. Any other popular foodstuffs people have been cooking without my knowledge?
I bet you don’t even boil your Easter eggs.
Wait till he discovers that an Easter Egg with ‘Mars’ on the box isn’t an actual planet
And the Galaxy egg is not a portal to a parallel universe
Q – What do you get if you pour a boiling kettle down a rabbit hole?
A – A hot cross bunny
They were supposed to be home baked on the day and eaten hot from the oven. That’s why they’re called HOT cross buns.
Those are WARM cross buns. We’re talking Hot, as in Toasty. As King Alfred the Cake famously explained to his wife, there’s a very thin line between baked and toasted.
There’s also a fine line between hot, and TOTALLY hot cross buns, as endorsed by ONJ.
Toasted with a creamy blue cheese like cambozola the lids then pressed down to melt it a bit. I’d come back on the 3rd day for a bit of that!
You put cheese on a hot cross bun?
You absolute philistine.
KFC are (possibly) serving a fillet burger in one
https://metro.co.uk/2019/04/19/kfc-might-be-bringing-out-a-hot-cross-bun-burger-heres-how-to-make-it-at-home-9251027/
Cheeses on the cross is what Easter’s all about
“I’m here all week… unless someone cuts me down”
….said Lloyd Cole
In the States I suspect that they say “Happy Holidays” ( just as they do at Xmas). This covers Easter, Passover and having some time off.
Here in Sweden a lot of people say Glad Påsk but basically it means Have a Nice Long Weekend.
They don’t really bother much with Easter in the States. No time off for most workers.
The Shermans are a bit stingy with their holidays
As a fully formed non god botherer, I’m absolutely fine with people wishing me a happy easter. Had lots of them on the dog walks over the long weekend. I think many people saying it are not doing it from a religious point of view. Wishing people a happy anything seems quite a nice thing to do in the main.
I don’t think I’ve ever been wished a happy Easter. I’m only now beginning to realise that I am a social pariah, shunned by my fellow man.
Get a dog. It’s worked for me.
Happy Easter Lando.
And can I be the first to say “Happy May Day!”
Ha ha thanks. You’ll always be my first, Steve.
I noticed that this year as well. I just assumed it was The Man trying to turn this weekend into another “event” to pump money into the corporate machine by hypnotising us masses into buying cards and presents etc….
But in all seriousness, yeah I’ve never noticed people before wishing each other Happy Easter, and it’s not something I do myself. “Have a nice weekend” or “Enjoy the bank holiday” is what I go for.
Bank holiday is worse. Equating long weekends with financial institutions not working is unimaginative.
The term “bank holiday” goes back to when Britain’s canals were first operating.
On some days, when the factory supplies were being keenly awaited (they had little way of knowing when the deliveries would actually arrive) the more eager/greedy factory boss would be standing on the canal bank waiting for the first glimpse of barge. The workers of course often had a day off (or at least a bit of a slack day). This was a bank holiday because on nice, sunny days you could make a day of it by waiting on the canal bank with a knotted hanky on your head and a picnic.
Eventually, people realized wearing picnic baskets on their heads was much too cumbersome (it didn’t help that the strength required for such a feat could best be obtained by actually eating the food their straining necks were carrying) and the straw hat was invented, so those who liked the “wicker look” in their chapeau could continue to sport it without the the need for the streets to be cluttered with broken crockery and beset with stingy insects feasting on jammy spills…
Stingy insects are of course those that are too miserly to buy their own jam, such as the Scroogefly, the Mingybug and the Tight-fisted Beetle, one of whom wrote Taxman
A Stingy insect also copulates for 6 hours at a time and raises a lot of money for Amnesty Insternational.
@sewer-robot I did some research on that before I posted. In the 1700s, there were market stalls that specialised in contraptions that you could strap on a bit like a modern backpack. They had a flat platform placed on the head and on this you could indeed carry a picnic basket. Remember- no cars, no bikes, this is the only way you would carry significant loads.
Walking properly so that the load wasn’t lost every 2 seconds was a skill that needed to be taught. Other market stalls popped up offering classes. These were called deportment stores.
I think Jesus might have been reincarnated as a Dandelion. I dug one out of my front lawn on Friday, and there was a fresh one there on Monday morning.
I’m thinking of opening a shrine.
Isn’t the correct response a teenage grunt and an almost imperceptible nod of the head?