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Are Easter trees really a thing?!
It’s a common reaction when I tell people I have one, and that I decorate it every year, and I have to explain that yes, they exist – mine was bought at Bed, Bath and Table at post-Easter sales many years ago along with lots of half-price ornaments – and that they come with a slew of decorations too.
Granted, nowhere near as many decorative elements as Christmas produces but still, a healthy number, all things considered and happily, enough pop culture ones to keep the same look and feel of my Christmas trees which do not feature more traditional ornaments.
The Easter tree comes with all kinds of extras like orange glittery carrots (thanks to my friend Warren), decorative eggs (see below) and many of the original Bed, Bath and Table ornaments which are pop culture-y but which have become so much a part of my Easter tree than it wouldn’t be the same without it.
So, enjoy these ornaments whose addition to my tree makes my hot cross bin-chomping, Easter egg-munching, no-work-for-four-days heart glad and which prove that every season needs colour, life and decoration and the happiness that comes with them.
Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore
A. A. Milne’s beloved creation, Winnie the Pooh, is another character who has belongs on my Easter tree. He has been a favourite of mine since I inherited my mother’s childhood paperback copies of When We Were Very Young (1924), Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928).
I read them as a child and treasured them and ever since A. A. Milne’s pricelessly goofy but sweet character has even everywhere in my life including on my Easter tree.
While his first published appearance was in 1924 in When We Were Very Young as “Edward Bear”, he actually he made his initial appearance as Winnie the Pooh in a commissioned story in the Evening News in 1925, with his own book coming out the following year.
He might be a little slow on the uptake it’s true but my goodness he has a huge heart, he’s a loyal friend and he LOVES honey in about the same proportion as we love him.
Finding this ornament of him and his friends, Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore in their original E. H. Shepard renderings was so special, and even though one of them seemed to be lost in transit from the shipper, it eventually turned up in time to be placed on the tree for Easter.
It’s hard to think of a world without Taz Devil, officially Tasmanian Devil in it, but the fact of the matter is that this much-loved character, described by Wikipedia as being “generally portrayed as a ferocious, albeit dim-witted, carnivore with a notoriously short temper and little patience”, only appeared in five shorts prior to Warner Bros Cartoons being shut down in 1964.
Voiced by Mel Blanc from 1954 to 1983, he is most memorably paired with Bugs Bunny who as you might imagine doesn’t tolerate any of Taz’s chaotially hilarious revelry.
Given his name in the 1957 short, “Ducking the Devil”, which put him together with Daffy Duck, he is calmed by almost any music BUT bagpipes which do a comically efficient job of getting him all riled up again.
Thankfully Easter eggs also seem to make him happy which reminds me that I’d eat my stash way out of his sight so I don’t lose them all in a chocolatey tornado!
While Snoopy has eclipsed him to some extent, Charlie the Brown has always been the main game in town when it comes to Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts comic strip.
He is the designated principal character in the beloved strip which started on 2 October 1950 and which published its final instalment on 13 February 2000 just hours after Schulz himself passed away.
Known for his trademark utterance “Good grief!”, Charlie Brown is perpetually eight-years-old, wears the same yellow T-shirt with a black zigzag stripe across it, and veers between optimism and pessimism which makes him very relatable human to me.
What’s always made him feel so special to me is that he is always picked upon by many of the other characters to greater or lesser extents and as someone who grew up bullied and never quite part of the gang, he felt like a kindred spirit to me.
This ornament really represents Charlie Brown – he was always called this by the other characters, never “Charlie” – who never quite got the hang of flying his kite, and who had to battle the “kite-eating tree among other adversarial foes.
I think what made me fall in love with Bugs Buggy first was his cheeky ballsiness.
Growing up in a Christian household which, while very loving, didn’t tolerate speaking out of turn or pushing the boundaries too much (and certainly not exercising the kind of sass that Bugs uses routinely), I found Bugs Bunny’s overweening confidence every bit as thrilling as it was intended to be.
Here was a character who refused to toe the line, who pushed back at every turn with the sort of wisecracks and subterfuge that confounded everyone who took him on. Regardless of whether it was Daffy Duck, or Elmer Fudd, or pretty much anyone else, Bugs who first appeared in 1940 and soon became known for his brash New Yorker accent and catchphrase “What’s Up Doc?” (with carrot in hand), always bested them and did so handsomely.
He was devilishly clever, able to thwart everything thrown at him no matter how capable his opponent and I love the way he managed to come out on top every time.
He was all the things I wished I could be, and acted in the way and says all the things I wished I was able to, and for that reason he became my hero.In a world of constraints and maddeningly binding rules, he did as he pleased.
I can’t say I have quite reached his level of insouciant devil-may-careness but I am still trying, and yes I would love to paint Easter eggs with his artistic je ne sais quoi, please.
Snoopy and Woodstock, two of the most beloved inhabitants of Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts comic strip, have been friends ever since the diminutive and sometimes irascible little yellow made his first appearance on 4 April, 1967.
Granted he didn’t officially get his name until some three years later on 22 June, 1970 – named after the 1969 Woodstock festival in case that’s where your mind was going – but he quickly became Snoopy’s bestie and sidekick, the avian personification of everyone’s favourite beagle’s obsession with birds, which Wikipedia notes, started in the early 1960s when “Snoopy began befriending birds when they started using his doghouse for various occasions: a rest stop during migrations, a nesting site, a community hall, or a place to play cards.”
It was good that Snoopy got such a lovely if hilariously tempermental friend because while he was popular in the neighbourhood, much to Charlie Brown’s often friend-less chagrin, he didn’t really have a close pal for some 17 years after his debut on 4 October 1950 and let’s face it, even flying aces get lonely.
Seeing them together in this ornament, as close as friends can be, warms the heart, and beautifully captures the spirit of their now long-standing friendship and of course, evokes Snoopy’s garrulously generous role as the Easter Beagle!
A non-pop culture extra …
Every year I pop into Dymocks, my favourite bookstore in the world right in the heart of Sydney’s George Street, and pick up two new pretty Easter egg ornaments that variously feature Peter the Rabbit or some sort of pretty pattern. They are not strictly speaking my style of ornament but I have grown to love them and to having them on the tree along with all the pop culture ones.
