Easter egg scramble no yolking matter

Thirty-thousand people turned up for an Easter egg hunt in Auckland when just 5000 were expected. Photo/File

With Easter and now Anzac Day behind us for another year, I find myself wondering if these "holidays" as we term them are worth "celebrating", bearing in mind that celebrations are traditionally meant to mark joyous events.

With the exception of Easter Sunday and relevant to Christians only, I don't see anything joyous about being nailed to a cross or remembering those brave souls who paid the ultimate price in service of their country.

Both occasions, in my opinion, are far better suited to reflection and commemoration, as opposed to celebration.

And there was certainly nothing to celebrate at a recent egg hunt/scramble in Auckland. Why this particular church chose to have the event on Good Friday is just beyond me, but the fact they had it at all has left them with egg on their faces.

I have no doubt their intentions were good but, as with any large public event, bad eggs are always on hand to spoil it for others. And spoil it, they did.

Cadbury had donated 1000 Easter eggs and the church was expecting a crowd of about 5000.

Even that number doesn't make for good odds, and it's abundantly clear to anyone with the most basic of math skills that not every child is going to walk away with a chocolate treat.

When demand exceeds supply, people get desperate. Red flag time for me.

Now 5000 was going to be challenging enough but 30,000 was just asking for trouble.

Even more so when you consider that adults were permitted to "compete" for the spoils, against little kids. That's 30 people to one egg, this is no yolking matter. Surely organisers could see the potential for disaster. Modify the event, exclude the adults, find another method of distribution. Where was the back-up plan?

It was nowhere and so the event went ahead. Suffice to say, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out how it ends.

Eggs were snatched away from little kids by bigger bullies, children were pushed and shoved and jostled and trampled over in an appalling display of greed and ruthlessness, committed largely by the adults. Kids were scratched and bloodied, some had to be treated in emergency rooms and many more were reduced to tears.

Maybe desperate parents in financial hardship saw this as their only chance to get their kids an egg for Easter, I don't know, but nothing can justify the almost feral behaviour that was witnessed at this "fun family event".

Organisers were, perhaps, aptly crucified on their Facebook page. What were they thinking? Not that there should have been any trace of violence but, considering it was Good Friday, maybe they shouldn't be so surprised that it ended up in a bun fight - of sorts.

Some might even go as far as to think it's a type of poetic justice for choosing to celebrate on the wrong day. Which brings me to Anzac Day. It's the day that is important or, more specifically, the date. A date that forever changed us, a date of profound loss. It's no holiday or cause for celebration.

As much as we Kiwis all love our statutory holidays, Anzac Day is not for Monday-ising, not for me anyway. To do so is to insult those we claim to be remembering. It's a date steeped in history, it can never be changed ... not without diminishing its significance.

Good Friday and Anzac Day - for me both symbolise death and remind me that every day off is not a bloody holiday, lest we forget.

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