Dive into the rich tapestry of Easter festivals as Al Smith guides us through the evolution of Easter eggs and the storied tradition of the White House Easter egg roll. Discover how presidents and first ladies have shaped this annual event, turning it into a cherished national tradition. Reflect on the deeper spiritual significance of Easter and the claims of Christ’s resurrection, as discussed through the lens of faith and historical evidence.
Welcome to Retirement Unpacked with Al Smith, owner of Golden Eagle Financial. You want a retirement plan that alleviates your fears about the future so you know your money will last. As a chartered financial consultant, Al Smith will help you find a balance between the risk and reward of the market and the safety of your retirement income. And now, here’s your host, Al Smith.
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Welcome to another program of Retirement Unpacked. I want to thank you for tuning in. There’s lots of other things you could be doing. And last week, because it was tax time, we talked about taxes and the history of taxes and things like that. If in your own planning for your own retirement, if you haven’t taken that into part of your thinking, part of your plan, then set up a time to come visit me in my office because I’m not a CPA, but I do understand taxes, especially how they fit into people’s retirement income. Because it’s not really how much is your retirement income, but of the income you can generate with your investments, how much do you get to keep? And that comes with planning. And I think planning is the most important thing. This week, we’re going to talk about Easter. Easter has been celebrated for literally thousands of years. It’s the celebration, the Christian celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. And it goes back many years. There’s a lot of traditions that are associated with that. And the first one that comes to mind, there is a word called eostarum. It’s a word in Old German, and they believe that this is where the actual word Easter came from. And there were controversies going way, way back because they couldn’t decide between Eastern Orthodox and maybe Catholic, Roman Catholics and so forth, when Easter should actually be celebrated. And they call those the Pascal controversies, fixing a date for Easter. And essentially, what Asia Minor did, they celebrated Easter on the 14th day of the first full moon following the spring solstice. The solstice being when there’s equal daylight conditions. 12 hours, night and day, the 14th day following that. But the 14 days following the solstice, Sunday was not included. And that was called 14 Nisan. What is Nisan? Well, that is part of the Jewish calendar. A little further along, the Council of Nicaea. You may have heard of that before. That was a major council that took place in 325 A.D. You may have heard of the Nicene Creed, and that was established at that council. And at that time, it was determined that it was to be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox and the equinox is uh when we if we continue to you know setting our time back it’s very near the point at which we set our time back but it’s usually around the 20th or 22nd of march and because of that it always falls between the 22nd of march and april 25th Now, Eastern Orthodox, they use what’s called the Julian calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar. And that’s a whole other topic. I think I may have even had a show about that in years past, the history of calendars. But in any event, they celebrate it based on the Julian calendar, and it always ends up being later, and it ends up being after Passover. Eastern Orthodox would never have it during the same time as Passover. Now, there were attempts made as late as the 20th century to have Easter fall on the same date each year, Excuse me. But those attempts failed. So there was never any final attempt at having Easter be the 17th of April or anything like that. That was just, there were attempts made to fix a date, but they never really came to pass. Now, what is the celebration of Easter? Well, in Roman Catholicism, there is Lent, which is the beginning of that celebration. It lasts 40 days. Now, those 40 days don’t count Sundays. And traditionally, in the Roman Catholic Church, those 40 days involved fasting and penance. And I’m sure you have all heard of Fat Tuesday. Fat Tuesday is the celebration in New Orleans, which precedes Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday being the beginning of Lent. And the other things that are celebrated during Easter, there’s Holy Week. And Holy Week begins with what’s called Maundy Thursday. And that is a celebration which was the Last Supper. And we’ve seen the paintings of the Last Supper. And those of you who are Christians have certainly read about the Last Supper. It’s in the Gospels. It talks about how Jesus determined who was to ultimately betray him by saying the one who is going to dip his bread, and so forth. So the Last Supper is talked about in the scriptures, and that is also where the wine and bread is celebrated in communion. That is at the Last Supper. And that’s called Maundy Thursday. Now, Good Friday is a solemn Sunday. day. I know in our own church we have services on Good Friday, and they make it very clear that there is not to be a lot of chit-chat and fellowship following the service, and we even have a provision where people can personally nail their sins to the cross on the service that our church has on Good Friday, which I think is very solemn as it should be. It’s the date when Jesus was crucified. Now, the Roman Catholic Church also sets up what’s called a vigil. And their vigil is a time frame between what they call a Holy Saturday and Sunday. And that vigil begins at 10 p.m., and following that is a Mass at midnight. In the Roman Catholic vigil, there’s four components to that. The paschal candle, There are two sacraments, the sacrament of baptism and the sacrament of confirmation. Now, those of you who are Lutheran, you’ve also probably experienced confirmation in your church, and it’s one of the sacraments in the Roman Catholic Church. And the fourth component of the Roman Catholic vigil is Mass. And so basically, going back thousands of years, we’ve celebrated Easter. And there’s been a few things that are different, some things that are similar between one religion and another. But I think it’s incredibly important for Catholics to celebrate Easter because it is the highest holiday of the year. Christmas, of course, celebrates the birth of Christ and Easter celebrates his resurrection. And there developed a lot of following traditions After the ones that I’ve already described, Lent and the Roman Catholic Vigil and Good Friday, Lent also consisted of fasting and penance and so forth. Now, a lot of people think about Easter eggs as being something that’s recent, right? Well, it’s not really recent. It began being celebrated as early as the 13th century. And one of the reasons for that, and this is the coloring of Easter eggs, actually began in the 13th century. And the reason for that is because of fasting and so forth, the church prohibited eating eggs during Holy Week. But if you’ve ever lived on a farm, the hens, they don’t know how to follow that. So they will continue to lay eggs, even though people are not eating eggs during Holy Week. For that reason, what they did, the eggs were painted, the eggs that were not eaten. And as I say, this goes all the way back to the 13th century. The reason they were painted red, which they were, is to signify the blood of Christ, which was celebrated obviously at Easter. and that brings us to the easter bunny that is goes back a number of years also that goes all the way back to the 17th century but it came much more common in the 19th century bunnies were thought of as laying easter eggs now we know this is of course silly but this isn’t something in the last 10 or 20 or 50 years this goes back to the 17th century. Now, unless you’re in Switzerland, then they celebrate the cuckoo that brought the Easter eggs. And so the traditions of Easter are many. But I think what’s more important is that we put it into perspective. If you are Christian, then the celebration of Easter is a major, major event. It’s just not a time to have brunch, or it’s also a good time to spend time with family. But I think it’s also a time to really think about what it means. The resurrection of Christ in order to save us from our sins, I think, is something to be clearly celebrated, especially when it’s put in the context of Good Friday. And so it’s not just a Sunday celebration, but it’s the Holy Week celebration. Puts everything into context. The Last Supper, the actual crucifixion, and the risen Christ, which took place on the third day on Sunday. And we were talking a few moments ago about the coloring of Easter eggs. Well, that is a tradition all in itself. And it goes all the way back to Lucy Hayes. Now, you may not know who Lucy Hayes is. She is, or rather was, the husband of Rutherford Hayes, the president. And what actually took place is there were 10,000 children that wanted to have an egg roll, and they chose to do that on the Capitol grounds in Washington, D.C., And it turned out to be such a raucous event that the grass on the Capitol grounds were literally destroyed. So they couldn’t have this. And basically, it’s not an Easter egg hunt. It’s an egg roll. And I’ll tell you a lot more about this and about Lucy Hayes and how the egg roll at the White House has evolved since 1878 when it first began. And again, it began on the Capitol grounds. And then with the blessing of Lucy Hayes, Rutherford Hayes’ wife, it moved to the South Lawn of the White House. And we’ll talk more about that after the break.
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Retirement planning with Golden Eagle Financial isn’t about products or spreadsheets. It’s about you. Al Smith spends more time listening than talking when he meets with clients. He understands that before he can build a strategy, he must understand the person for whom it’s designed, fears, dreams, wants, needs, and comfort with risk. That’s why clients trust Al Smith with comprehensive retirement planning, from pensions and social security to owning property or donating time and money. Al wants to know the things you really want to do with your money in retirement. Once he understands you, he will use tools to help you understand different scenarios to fine-tune your plan. Al Smith says it’s easy. Once he knows someone, the planning is simple. Call Al Smith of Golden Eagle Financial if you’re ready to make your dream a reality. No pressure, no upfront cost. Just a conversation and a unique plan crafted for you. Find Golden Eagle Financial on the KLZ Advertisers page to start the relationship your nest egg deserves. Investment advisory services offered through Brookstone Capital Investment LLC, a registered investment advisor. BCM and Golden Eagle Financial Limited are independent of each other. Insurance products and services are not offered through BCM, but are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed agents.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome back to Retirement Unpacked. We’re talking about the annual celebration of Easter. And after talking a little bit about the history of the celebration of Easter, that brings us to the egg roll. And I used to think before I researched it that the Easter eggs at the White House were like many people have where they hide the eggs. But that’s not the case. This is an egg roll and it’s actually kind of a race. And its history began in 1876 when 10,000 children were off from school on a Monday the day after Easter. And they had this egg roll like an egg race using dyed Easter eggs on the Capitol grounds. And the Capitol grounds were so destroyed that Congress actually passed a law called the Turf Protection Law to prevent any portion of the Capitol grounds or terraces from being used as a playground. Well, as you may well imagine, this was quite disappointing for children. And that’s where Lucy Hayes, President Rutherford B. Hayes’ spouse said they could come to the South Lawn of the White House, which they did two years later. One year in between, it was very adverse weather, so they didn’t have any kind of an egg roll in 1877. But in 1878, it began the tradition of the egg roll on the South Lawn of the White House. And it ultimately became… quite a tradition every year. And to give you some idea, there were informal egg rolls staged by Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson even before that period. But the one in 1878, the Easter egg roll, that’s where it really became popular. Some of the other things that they did, President Grover Cleveland personally shook hands with each of the children in the East Room after which it was littered with crushed eggshells. Two years later, Benjamin Harrison recruited the United States Marching Band, and if ever you played an instrument in high school or grade school, you will know who John Phillips Sousa was. He was the conductor of the United States Marching Band. He is the composer of Stars and Stripes Forever and many, many marches. Crowds swelled at that time until more than 50,000 people met on the South Lawn of the White House in like 1937. And not every, you know, historian or first lady or so forth was very excited about it. First Lady Edith Roosevelt complained that the odor of the broken eggs created needless destruction of lovely grass. Now, once we got into World War I and World War II, the egg rolls were postponed during both of those periods. But then post-war rationing measures and subsequent renovation of the White House under Truman resulted in further cancellations. But in 1953… President Eisenhower revived the tradition after a 12-year hiatus. and something else in 1969 was the first appearance of the Easter Bunny and that was the idea of First Lady’s Pat Nixon. She had one of her staffers donned a fleeced white costume and it was quite an event. Five years later organized Organizers raided the White House kitchen for silverware and they staged the first egg rolling done that was done in which children used spoons to push their eggs in marked lanes. So this was a regular egg race. And before I began researching this, I was mentioning that I always thought that the idea was to hide the eggs and then the young children will go look for them and find them. But this was an egg roll, which was like a race of racing with the eggs. And when they used the spoons, that added a new dimension. It became like a big deal with the whole springtime carnival. Jimmy Carter, for example, he added a three-ring circus and a menagerie that included a 1,200-pound steer named Big Red. Four years later, President Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan, they added Broadway show performances and balloons from the Macy’s Day Parade. So quite a few things were being done. This was very, very exciting. Now, As a tradition, this happens every year at the White House, and it normally happens on a Monday. The planning for the current administration, the Trump administration, is to have private sponsors. And some people are thinking, well, that’s kind of taking away from what has been done traditionally, but having private sponsors has a lot of pluses. First of all, we don’t need to use taxpayer money to pay for the event. And essentially, what’s being offered, three levels of sponsorship, where the sponsors will get their name recognition and so forth, levels at $75,000, $125,000, and $200,000. But All of the proceeds from these sponsorships will go toward the White House Historical Association. And I think the tradition of the egg rolls at the White House, I think that’s something that we can all look forward to. Now, Easter, on a more serious note… is a celebration of the resurrection of Christ. And as a Christian, I enjoy it every year. I marvel at what Christ has done for us, we who are sinners. who he was died in excruciating death that word excruciating came from the word crucifixion and some people who do not follow christ who are atheists and so forth some of them believe the resurrection did not take place. And there’s a lot of evidence that it did. Besides the Bible itself, there’s other historians. There’s a Jewish historian named Josephus, and much of his writings confirm what took place. There are a lot of proofs of the resurrection, the first being the empty tomb. And people who reject that say that, oh, Jews or other people raided it and took his body out or something like that. But his followers were very fearful at that time, and it’s very, very unlikely. And the second proof is that of the women who were eyewitnesses. And if this were drummed up or phony, they wouldn’t have used women as eyewitnesses because back then women had a lower place than men when it came to respect, not just respectability, but veracity and things of that nature. His apostles found newfound courage because they had seen him. He was actually witnessed by over 500 people in a crowd. That’s specified in the Bible. And people who… are atheists or don’t don’t believe in jesus that oh they just say that you know the bible is untrue well there is much more veracity in the bible than there is in other things that are taught in schools things like the life of aristotle and plato and socrates there are only A few remaining parchments of their work where there are enormous numbers of representations of the Bible and different ones vary hardly at all in spite of enormous differences, things like the Dead Sea Scrolls have brought tremendous more truth and veracity to the Bible for believers. Those of you who are listening, I want to thank you for tuning in. If you’d like to have a conversation with me to learn if you’re on track for your own retirement or if you’re in retirement and you want to learn if there’s a way your money could possibly be working harder for you, contact my office at 303- 744-1128. Thank you for listening. Have a very happy Easter, and let’s keep the folks in the Middle East in our prayers. Bye.
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Thank you for listening to Retirement Unpacked with your host, Al Smith of Golden Eagle Financial.
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The opinions and advice on the preceding program are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of this station, Crawford Media Group, its staff, management, or sponsors.
