Secular Easter?

I got the spousal dope slap, or rather the spousal angry eyes, earlier this week when there were some details being discussed regarding an Easter fete outside of our family circle.  We have our own plans, so will not be attending, but still the topic came up.  The reason for this is that the hosts of the soiree are non observant Christians.

Now by that, I mean that they do profess a Christian faith, but they are completely non observant.  So this is outside of the Easter and Christmas Christian arena, this is more in your funeral and weddings arena. 

Now, I'm not saying that they're bad people.  Indeed, the people I'm referencing, to the extent that I know them (which I don't claim to be encyclopedic by any means) seem to me to be extremely decent and good people.  But their secular feast seems to be divorced from Easter.  I can't see what a Easter dinner without Easter actually is.  It's an occasion for dinner I guess.  Some snarky comment by me to this effect, i.e., leaving Easter out of Easter, prompted the spousal rebuke.

But it really does make no sense. 

Easter traditionally has a large dinner as Lent, which was much more rigorous at one time, ended at noon on Holy Saturday in anticipation of Easter commencing that evening, which it does in the sense that the traditional Catholic practice is to have the vigil of a Holy Day count as part of the Holy Day.  So in that sense, Easter sort of commences more or less in the early evening of the day prior to Easter Sunday.  The Lenten fast ended and a feast in honor of the Holy Day commenced.  In Protestant circles this is retained as a feast in honor of the day.  In Catholic and Orthodox circles the original meaning is retained.  But for people who never go to church, well I don't know exactly what the concept is.

I guess that its an instinctive effort to honor Easter.  Most folks in that category have some exposure to a more formal religious observance and I guess even if they've dispensed with making it to church at all, save for funerals and weddings, they're still doing that.  And that's good.  But it's also pretty thin.  It would honor the day more to skip the feast and go to church.

I suppose that view reflects my early youth.  My mother was an awful cook and we never had what others would regards as a big Easter feast.  My mother or maybe my father would likely cook a ham, which is a traditional Easter dinner, but it wouldn't be a huge dinner with lots of invited people.  Indeed, it'd be pretty darned close to a regular Sunday dinner.  We would always make it to Mass, however, and that made Easter special, as Easter Mass is special.

Oh yes, today is Holy Thursday.  If you are Catholic or a Protestant that adheres closely to retained Catholic practice, you already knew that.  And if you are Orthodox you likely knew that, even if it probably isn't your Holy Thursday.  If you live in a Hispanic country, you definitely knew that, as you have Holy Week off.

Observations, I guess, by a sojourner in a strange land.