Here is a very interesting fact about myself that I recently remembered:
The first holiday I ever tried to preserve and continue to celebrate after it was over, actually wasn't Halloween.
It was Easter.
When I was very small, my mother had window clings for every holiday. (I actually have a post about the scarecrow that went up at Halloween and stayed up through Thanksgiving here.) As a little girl who liked particularly girly things at the time (I believe this happened somewhere between the ages of four and six), the Easter clings were actually my favorite, particularly the little lamb. For whatever reason, that particular year, I couldn't bear the thought of those clings being packed away for another three-hundred-and-something days, and begged my mother to move them into my window in my bedroom so I could enjoy them year round. She agreed, albeit reluctantly, and the Easter clings adorned my window until they eventually dried out and shriveled up from the summer heat, much to my devastation.
(These pictures are from an eBay listing I found of the exact decorations. I believe we had some chicks too.)
I find it funny, looking back on it, how, aside from Halloween, Easter may be the holiday I actually have the most vivid and specific memories of.
These realizations recently led me back to one of very few Easter specials I remember from my youth, Here Comes Peter Cottontail. Aside from childhood nostalgia, watching this story play out once again actually really made me think about quite a few things!
Here Comes Peter Cottontail is the story of, who else, Peter Cottontail, chosen by the retiring head Easter Bunny to take over the position. However, the position is also sought after by the much darker-minded January Q. Irontail, but for all the wrong reasons. Irontail lost his tail to an accident with a child many years ago, and had to replace it with an iron one, hence his name, and has detested children, and by extension, the Easter holiday, ever since. Irontail declares a contest, that whoever delivers the most Easter eggs shall become the new head Easter Bunny, and, through some trickery and the fact that Peter chooses to party the night before and oversleeps, Irontail manages to win the contest and become the new Easter Bunny, turning their homeland of April Valley permanently into the type of spring day that I, personally, enjoy, rainy and gray, and also implements some spooky new rules that today's Halloween community would absolutely love to incorporate into Easterween celebrations, I'm sure. (More about that later.)
Peter, though, finds a way to at least try and prevail, borrowing a time machine called the Yestermorrowbile from the mysterious, magical inventor, Seymour S. Sassafras. However, things continually go awry, and rather than landing back in Easter, Peter ends up having to cycle through almost all of the holidays, only to learn a lesson I know all too well:
Society is just far too calendar-driven!
I know, there would be no story if Peter was just simply able to hand off a basket of eggs on Mother's Day or July 4th, but come on. The actual Easter Bunny appears before you and offers you an egg, and you refuse to take it solely because it's not a particular Sunday in March or April? Even after he paints it to adapt to whichever holiday it may be? At that point, you're just being horrifically boring! I highly doubt people would meet Santa Claus with this same level of disrespect!
And, in case you needed anymore clarification that Halloween people are the best people, it's actually the head witch of Halloween, along with a few other goblins and ghouls, that take Peter's newly designed orange and black eggs, no questions asked, just happy that someone is finally "treating the tricksters". Though just a small portion of the story (which is later derailed once again by Irontail), it really hit home for me. I have always said, Halloween, in many ways, is about acceptance. Acceptance of ourselves, and acceptance of the the things that normally might seem out of the ordinary. Easter eggs may have very little to do with Halloween, but that doesn't stop the Halloween folks from accepting them, nor does it stop Peter from offering his eggs, despite the fact that he couldn't be more out of his element. It's a truly amazing thing to see, especially after witnessing Peter having been turned away on previous holidays, and, sadly, knowing the Halloween crew would be turned away anywhere else as well.
Which brings me back to Irontail. He has clearly been somewhat banished to the dark recesses of April Valley. He's suffered a trauma and while he certainly didn't deal with it in the best way, or even necessarily really process it, it's not entirely his fault that he's such an outcast. I get the sense that, even before his accident, January Q. Irontail may have had a flair for the spookier things, and I feel like it's quite possible he could have been suffering from some kind of dysphoria as to which holiday world he belonged to. Seemingly the only darker colored bunny in the land, and with a pet bat and spider (not to mention the fact that he's voiced by none other than Vincent Price), Irontail seems far more suited to Halloween than he does Easter, and it's even implied that he's respected and admired by the residents of the Halloween realm. Maybe it's a deep dive to get into for such a little movie centered around the opposite holiday, but I found myself wondering why Irontail didn't just leave, and take up residence with the Halloween characters instead. He very clearly would be more in his element there, and even remarks that Halloween is "his kind of day".
At the very least, I feel as though the other residents of April Valley should at least be a little more accepting of the fact that "April showers" exist too. Perhaps all January Q. Irontail needed was for someone to normalize the fact that not everyone's idea of a perfect spring day is sunny and warm and colorful. I know I can relate.
Regardless, though, I feel like Here Comes Peter Cottontail is a fun watch, for both Easter nostalgia, and surprising statements on Halloween and the calendar-driven society. I was not expecting to get as much out of my recent viewing as I did!
Stay spooky, my friends! And remember, it's okay to do the bunny-hop down your own path!
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