The night before last, my family and I were having dinner and my boys were saying how happy they were that the Easter bunny came around the neighborhood to give out candy.

They were also wondering if he would still show up that night to hide the eggs we dyed even though the Corinavirus is keeping everyone in their homes.

My youngest told me he thought there was an 80% chance he would and a 20% chance he wouldn’t. I asked, “Why those statistics?” and he said, “Well the 80% is because he’s magic so it doesn’t matter about the Coronavirus.” 😊

I felt like it was a good time to remind them why we celebrate Easter.

We don’t go to church. I have my own reasons that I won’t go into now, but if you’ve read my previous blog posts – No, it’s not because they don’t make peel-off nail polish anymore.

Whenever the kids have questions about religion I usually turn them over to their Grandpa. Instead, I had the floor, and amazingly, they listened intently and only interrupted a few times to act like jackasses.

I told them about why and how Jesus died on the cross and that he was buried in a tomb. I explained that when his body was gone the next day, he’d proven to his disciples that he was everything they believed him to be.

They had questions:

“How did they nail his feet?”

“Why did they use a cross and not a giant triangle?”

And my favorite: “Why would he turn water into wine? What if someone wanted to go swimming?”

Afterwards I told them (what I feel was the most important part of the discussion):

Grandpa believes one thing, Mommy believes another, and Daddy believes something else. YOU are free to believe whatever your heart tells you.

In our family, just as they’re allowed to decide who they love, they are also allowed to choose what they believe in. (Although I did tell them that I’d be pretty bummed if they were Satan worshippers and PJ added that they’re not allowed to be white supremacists.)

Then we went on to tell them about all the other religions of the world.

They already had an idea about Buddhism because I have a little Buddha statue that my old nail salon gave me 20 years ago.

I rub his belly every time I pass because I feel like it gives me good luck. Growing up, we’d visit my very Catholic Nana in Astoria Queens, and she had a pretty big Buddha statue in her living room. She’d tell me and Teara to go rub his belly and she’d give us money ☸️

We talked about Judaism and how it differs from Christianity (and not just how their holiday music is better IMO) ✡️

We listed as many religions as we could think of and they got the idea.

I also let them know that some people don’t believe in anything at all. They didn’t like that, and honestly, I don’t either. Just like Brett Michaels sang, I think everyone needs Somethin’ To Believe In 🎶

The irony of this post is that it’s probably going to piss some people off because it’s different from what they believe.

But no matter who or what you worship, ask yourself, ‘Would my god be angry with this family for choosing to be loving and accepting of any idea that doesn’t harm others?’

Come on man, you know the answer is no.

Imagine everyone felt this way.

☮️❤️