Nona Hates Me

In Greece, it's tradition for Godparents to give their godchild a candle and a pair of new shoes for Easter. The theory goes that the new shoes were a way of spreading the cost of child rearing in harder times. As for the candle, go to any church at midnight before Easter Sunday and you'll see swarms of little brats clutching awe inspiring, fantastical creations with a candle poking out of one end. The Godparent candle.

Naturally, the fancier the candle, the more your Godparents love you. Remember, dear readers, that yours truly snuck her way to Godparentship last summer. So it was off to Jumbo for me and Mr Zeus.

If you've never been to Jumbo, don't go. It's the most effective contraceptive device known to man. Five minutes in Jumbo with it's maze of aisles and lucrative prices set to a cocophany of imp music and screaming children and your illusions of parenthood will come crashing down around you.

We found three aisles of candles and man, I've never done this before so I was gobsmacked. There were Barbie branded candles, Winnie the Pooh candles, and my favourite, a Sakis Rouvas candle. I theorized that since our godson is not even two yet, we should get him something mid-market because he won't even remember the candle anyway.

Mr Zeus insisted we go for a full on chunky candle embellished with boats, ropes, wind chimes and transparent base filled with floating sand and starfish. "We don't want to look cheap." But he's barely two! He'll just break it! I tell you, whoever thought of the candle caste system is a genius. I bet the mid and low range ones don't even sell. The bigger, the brasher, the more expensive the better because that's how your godparenting skills are measured. Big Candle = Big Love.

We left Jumbo mysteriously loaded with lots of auxiliary stuff. How did that get in my basket? Why is the receipt so long? Did we buy that? That's what makes Jumbo so evil. You go in for one thing and before you know it you've decided that xyz is too good a bargain to miss so you'll have 10 of that and 20 of something else. Jumbo is a dangerous place. In these post-credit crunch climes, I advise you to stay away.

Next, shoes. Once again we didn't want to look cheap so we bought three pairs in three sizes. We love our godson. Do you see how much? Do you see? We got him THREE pairs of shoes! We were only obliged to get him one, and we got him THREE! That's how much we love him.

I'm really looking forward to Easter despite what it's doing to the programming schedule for TV. Last night there were three different versions of Christ's birth on TV. Just for the sake of spreading some alternative points of view, in my religion's version, there was no Joseph. Mary was visited by the angel Gabriel and told of her pending virgin birth. Her parents packed her off to a remote place by the desert and when her time came, she ran into the desert, scared, where she gave birth to Jesus under a date palm.

She cried and wished she were dead because she felt ashamed, when a voice from the date palm told her not to worry and that God would provide for her. A stream appeared for Mary to drink from and dates fell from the palm for Mary to eat and regain her strength. Then she walked back to the town with the baby Jesus. The townspeople started having a go at her for her disgraceful out-of-marriage birth and the baby Jesus began to speak to tell them who he was. And that showed them!

Happy Easter everyone!

Image: http://images.cb2.com/is/image/CB2/TaperCandles12InWhite?$lg$