c. 1999 Religion News Service

CANTON, Ohio _ At Christmas, Elizabeth Neel buys holiday greeting cards for many of the people she knows. But as she prepares for Easter, her spending and sending patterns are markedly different.”At Easter, I buy cards for people that are closest to me because it’s a much more meaningful holiday for me,”said Neel, a clerical worker who was shopping at Berean Christian Stores here recently.”It’s not really focused on the candy … It’s really on Christ’s resurrection and death.” Neel, 23, a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, gave up soda for Lent this year and sees Easter as a time for personal reflection rather than public commercialism.

She’s not alone. While consumers spend more money on candy at Easter than at Christmas, cards and flowers are far less popular during the Christian holiday that marks the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus. This year, Easter will be celebrated in Western churches on April 4, and on April 11 in Eastern Orthodox churches.”The difference is Easter really _ with the focus on the Resurrection and on the Passion of Christ _ is a much more directly religious event,”said Mark Harvey, a board member of the Society for the Arts, Religion and Contemporary Culture, and a music lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.”And so although you can take it to the side of the larger, cultural celebration of the Easter bunny, Easter egg and that kind of thing, there’s … a more serious, substantial side to the religious observance.” Those savvy about holiday traditions note the clear difference between Christmas and Easter in gift giving, which is so much a part of the former but not the latter.”In the Western world, especially in the U.S. and in northern Europe … Christmas has undoubtedly been boosted by the exchange of gifts and the opportunity that provides for commercial interests, whereas there’s been nothing quite like that surrounding Easter, except for outrageous hats,”said Thomas J. Talley, professor emeritus of The General Theological Seminary in New York.

Hats _ along with other clothing items _ and candy are two of Easter’s enduring symbols that stem from the purse rather than the pew.

While Americans spent more than $1.4 billion on Christmas candy last year, they shelled out even more _ about $1.7 billion _ on Easter candy.”I think there are different kinds of gifts given at Christmas,”said Susan Smith, spokeswoman for the National Confectioners Association of the USA in McLean, Va.”Candy is more of a traditional gift and Easter baskets more of a traditional gift at Easter.” But the opposite holds true for cards and flowers, two other popular holiday purchases.

For the greeting card industry, Easter is the fourth busiest occasion, but still way behind Christmas. While 2.6 billion Christmas cards were sold last year, Easter cards amounted to a comparatively meager 120 million.”Who do you send Easter cards to?”said Mila Albertson, publications and promotions director of the Washington-based Greeting Card Association.”Just maybe close family, whereas Christmas is sent to everyone _ friends, family, acquaintances, business associates.” Still, Hallmark Cards now offers 54 Easter cards in a”Yours in Christ”line that the Kansas City, Mo.-based firm markets specifically for”people (for whom) faith and spirituality is a key part of their lives,”according to company spokeswoman Michelle Buckley.

The number of Easter cards manufactured by Hallmark has grown consistently and now stands at 500, Buckley added. The Easter offerings range from cards with Bible verses and pencil-etched portraits of Christ, to a colorful card featuring Snoopy of”Peanuts”fame that reads”Hope your Easter is blessed … with everything that makes you feel all happy inside!” The floral industry also spends far more time selling Christmas poinsettias than Easter lilies. In 1997, about 9 million potted lilies were sold, compared to almost 60 million poinsettias.

Jennifer Sparks, director of consumer marketing at the Society of American Florists, noted that Easter’s celebratory aspect is brief and follows the sacrificial Lenten period, while people celebrate Christmas for a month or more.”Easter tends to be so much more short-lived in terms of the celebration,”said Sparks, whose office is in Alexandria, Va.

Despite the far less commercial interest, Easter does have its enduring cultural icons, noted Leigh Eric Schmidt, author of”Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays”(Princeton University Press).”I can imagine one not even being at church on Easter and having the big, say, Sunday meal that day and also having Easter egg hunts,”he said.”Even the White House has an Easter egg roll. There’s a kind of civic religion of Easter.” But Schmidt, a Princeton University religion professor, said the fact that Easter is not as all-consuming in the popular culture the way Christmas is may help Christians hold onto its core meaning.”To the extent that they’re both secularized and they both have taken on these deeply American pop cultural forms, I think there’s always some loss in that for Christian liturgical traditions,”he said.”There’s a certain sense that you lose control. You no longer have abilities to really shape the meanings of these fundamental festivals once they have such large play in the culture.” For shoppers during the days leading up to Easter, even the music emanating from stores’ sound systems is far more secular than during the Christmas season.”You hear Christmas carols on Muzak, but you don’t hear Easter church music on Muzak,”said Carl P. Daw Jr., executive director of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada.”What you hear, if anything (is) `Here Comes Peter Cottontail’ or `In my Easter Bonnet’… . We don’t have the same kind of social reinforcement of Easter in the secular culture.” Daw, who is based at Boston University School of Theology, and Talley of General Theological Seminary, agree that Easter’s focus on the Resurrection rather than birth makes it less a commercial opportunity.”The Resurrection is unique and that doesn’t happen to everybody,”said Talley.”It’s a very much more unique phenomenon and one that for that reason is more adamantly rooted in faith.” That’s just fine with Neel, the clerical worker in Canton.”I think it’s good that it’s that way because it’s not as commercialized and not meant to be commercialized,”she said.

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