The ever-resourceful Jim Martin over at America magazine has a great piece on Slate on why Easter has been able to survive the onslaught of commercialism that Christmas has not:

“The Christmas story, with its friendly resonances of marriage, family, babies, animals, angels, and-thanks to the wise men-gifts, is eminently marketable to popular culture. It’s a Thomas Kinkade painting come to life. On the other hand, a card bearing the image of a near-naked man being stripped, beaten, tortured, and nailed through his hands and feet onto a

wooden crucifix is a markedly less pleasant piece of mail.”