How not to mess up Easter

Easter is one of those holidays which brings all parts of the family together. The host family spends hours cleaning their home, preparing food and planning this only to have it turn to shit in mere minutes.

 For us, hosting Easter dinner for the third time in ten years, we partially remodeled both our kitchen and living room, meticulously cleaned our money pit of a house and planned a pretty kick-ass meal. Of course, as luck would have it, the electricity had gone out when we arrived home from an excruciatingly long Easter morning mass. We hauled what we needed to my sister-in-law’s house and the wife cooked what she could there. I stayed home and minded the rugrats and waited for guests to show up.

 The guests showed up in a trickle. The electricity came back on at ten minutes before noon and we hustled to get everything on the table by noon. We missed the mark by about ten minutes but that was, by far, the most timely holiday meal which had been served in over a decade for this particular family by anyone hosting it.

 The problem, though, was that eleven people had yet to show up. I graciously waited five minutes and, after that time, calmly proclaimed “screw ‘em” and told everyone to eat. The food was as good as could be expected but where in the holy hell have people’s manners gone? I know that life gets in the way and kids can be a total bitch to get out the door in a timely fashion but it’s not like this was sprung on you a few hours ago. We told people months ago, followed up by a reminder a few weeks ago and a reminder about what to bring about two weeks ago.

So, why can’t people show up at a designated time? Everyone lives within ten minutes of our house. The wife’s dad showed up 50 minutes late. One of her brothers and his family showed up over an hour late. Her sister and family rolled up thirty minutes late. That accounts for a whopping fourteen guests showing up late. I get that holidays should be fun and relaxed but, shit, plan your time a bit better. While this isn’t a fucking job interview, have some respect for those who have the kindness to invite you lazy, untimely bastards into their house and feed you for free. Showing up on time is the least you can do.