Easter traditions fill my head as I sit at my desk at home and think back to a time when I didn’t have to wear a facemask to the supermarket. This time of year, my mother would buy me new duds to wear to church, and an Easter basket filled with jelly beans, chocolate rabbits, and sweet, sugary Peeps. A lot of time has passed since those early Peeps, and yet, every year at this time, I cannot walk past them in a supermarket without tossing a box in my cart.
Peeps now come as chicks and bunnies in pink, blue, and lavender. You can have Peeps all year round, too, not just Easter. Orange pumpkin Peeps come out at Halloween, cherry heart Peeps fill the shelves on St. Valentine’s Day, and Christmas has white sugary stars. Visit the Peeps website (marshmallowPeeps.com) and you’ll find a whole community of Peeps people who create Peeps dioramas and Peeps cake recipes like the Peeps Pinata. Surf the internet, and you’ll find Peeps paintings and sculptures. Peeps have become more than just an Easter treat; they’ve become a cult.
So, here we all are, Easter just days away, and most of us staying at home to protect ourselves from the Covid-19 epidemic. As the holiday approaches, we all know it’s going to be different. There’ll be no Easter dinner at grandma’s house; no pictures at the mall with the Easter Bunny and no local Easter Egg hunt sponsored by the mayor. At the White House, Donald and Melania will have to hide their eggs from the Secret Service.
Holidays, like Easter, are a big part of the cycle of life; they fill our scrapbooks with lifelong memories. They help us track time, like watching Uncle Bill’s hairline recede and seeing cousin Joan’s new facelift on her 40th birthday. Holidays are our chance to act silly, dress up for Halloween parties, and wear ugly Christmas sweaters to work. Holiday traditions help us grow extended families like when we visited the same friends for after dinner coffee and cake. Year-after-year we would get together and laugh about old times; then we would raid their kids’ Easter candy.
Which brings me back to Peeps. Do they taste good? Well, taste is subjective. Peeps are a mix of sugar and gelatin that’s gets squirted into blobs of marshmallow then bathed in bright-colored sugar. Each one is 28 calories and eight grams of sugar. As far as taste goes, some people like their Peeps fresh, others like them to get a little stale and crunchy. Peeps grow on you, like yogurt. At first it tastes like a bowl of sour yuk, but somehow you get used to it.
I surprised myself when I bought the Peeps at the supermarket, this past week, since I’m trying to eat a healthy diet especially now that I’m home most of the time. Why would I put something so sugary in my shopping cart? Am I trying to sabotage my fitness goals? Has staying in all these weeks destroyed my willpower? Will eating a few hot-pink Peeps send me on a Peeps bender?
Nah!
I just want a little taste of happy during these tough times, a little sugar to jog my memory back to a time when all that mattered was how many jelly beans were in my Easter basket. Besides, Peeps are a good way to stay positive about the future. Together, we will get through this. We may not be under the same roof, but we can still celebrate.
The Peeps are in the House!
Next week: Fighting Stay at Home Flab with YouTube