Christmas or Easter … GO!

Which is more important: Christmas or Easter?

I ask because Easter will be here in a little over a month, and I found myself today comparing the state of things right now with the state of things in any given mid-November. A month before Christmas, there are 17 radio stations doing 24-hour carols (both religious and secular), and a lot of churches have switched to all Christmas music all the time, too. People are acting stressed out, sure, but that peace and goodwill thing is not imaginary; lots of folks start increasing their charitable giving, preparing celebrations with family and friends, trying to be nicer, getting ready to hail the birth of the savior.

And here we are, with Easter coming up on April 4 — crap, Easter is April 4? Well, no biggie. I’ll worry about it the week before. Wal-Mart has some bunnies on aisle 63. The church will probably do the same-old, same-old, until a week or two before Easter, when maybe the pastor will start a special short series on the crucifixion in which I’m sure a montage from The Passion of the Christ will play a part.

Maybe I’m alone in thinking this is a big deal — after all, I go to a Baptist church, and we Baptists don’t celebrate Lent or Ash Wednesday or Palm Sunday, all of which help prepare folks in other denominations for Easter. Do you guys think this is an issue? Am I being unfair to think maybe our priorities are a little skewed? Is the birth of Christ (which plenty of non-Christians believe happened, even if they disagree about the specifics) more important than His death and resurrection (on which rest all our hope)? Does the secularization of Christmas that so many people rail against every single year actually (*gasp*) play a teeny tiny role in the importance we place on that holiday? Is it even appropriate to compare?