Hard to believe it’s almost Easter. Hard for me to believe I’ve reached the age where the weeks and months pass so quickly! When I was a kid my mom would say stuff like: Where did this month go? This year has just flown by. Christmas will be here before we know it!
I thought she was crazy. It seemed to take forever for Spring Break to arrive, for it to be my birthday, for school to let out for summer, and especially for Christmas to come.
And now here I am in disbelief that it’s almost Easter when it feels like I turned the calendar page over to 2023 just a few days ago. I must be approaching elderly.
Easters as a child meant being out of school from Holy Thursday to the Monday after Easter. It meant my mom would take my sister and me shopping for a new Easter frock. This new ensemble for church often included white gloves and sometimes a hat. I wore a dress and patent leather shoes to church every Sunday, but the gloves and hat were an Easter-only occasion.
The week before Easter also meant dying eggs. Real hardboiled eggs that were stinky to begin with. Then we dipped them in really stinky dye made with vinegar. Some of them would get broken as I pressed too hard with a wax crayon that would reveal words after the egg was dipped in pastel colored dyes. Other eggs would break when I pushed too hard to adhere fancy stickers that came with the dye set. And still, I looked forward to this. As I got a bit older, I would hide eggs for my sister and baby brother, and some neighbor kids, to search for in the back yard. I prided myself that they never were able to find them all. Of course, then I had to ferret out the missing ones before they went rotten and stunk up the whole of outdoors.
The evolution to plastic break-apart eggs containing little candies was one of the best things to happen since the first Easter.
The worst Easter idea, in my opinion anyway, was the sunrise service. I had to attend and take photos at the community Easter sunrise service a couple of years when I was a young reporter at the local newspaper. I arrived bleary-eyed. But I did get a couple of nice shots of the trumpeter jolting us out of our seats, playing Up From the Grave He Arose.
I won’t be wearing a new frock or gloves this year. Probably will wear slacks instead of a dress (although my mother would be mortified to hear this). I definitely won’t be wearing heels, at least until after I’ve had my knee replaced later this year.
Does your family celebrate any Easter or Passover traditions? Do you have any travel plans for Spring Break?
Chicks on the Case 
No plans. Hoping to find a restaurant to have Easter dinner as I am unable to cook due to a fall I had recently. Time sure does fly, it seems like not that long ago I gave birth to a little boy and now he is married and has a family of his own.
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Oh, Queen, I’m so sorry about your fall! Hope you have a lovely Easter dinner.
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When the kids were little, we did Easter egg hunts. They loved it. These days, we alternate visiting my siblings one year with visiting my wife’s family the next.
No peeps in this household, BTW. 🐇
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Ha, JC, glad to hear that our marshmallow Chick sisters are safe in your household.
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Jim, I’m with you on Peeps — not a fan!
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I’m not a fan, but one of my kids loves squishing them!
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Vickie, I know what you mean about the time passing. I feel the same.
We dyed eggs and had dresses. But since it was just as likely to snow as be warm, those nice dresses were often covered with a winter coat and paired with snow boots. Kind of defeated the purpose!
Oh, and Mom always bought an Easter lily plant for the table.
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Yes, the Easter lily plant! And hyacinth.
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Same here, Liz.
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Easter Lillie’s are beautiful for Spring. It’s still snowy here in the Yoop!
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Ah, the Easter outfits. Like Liz, I was often bundled against the cold and wind. My dad always insisted on eating the ears off my chocolate bunnies. And So. Many. Photos. My mom saved the Easter grass and fuzzy chicks for my Easter basket and brought them out each year. I still have the chicks. I think/hope I got rid of the plastic grass, or else the chipmunks who frequent our basement (risking our kitty’s watchful eye) have very nice and colorful beds.
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Lisa, a coat was never part of my Easter wardrobe growing up in Tennessee. But I’ll likely be wearing one this weekend in the U.P.!
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Me too!! Sigh.
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When I was a kid, we’d go to a large park after church on Easter and take photos, and yes, we’d all have new clothes. We’d line up in age order and at some point the girls began turning one foot out. We STILL line up like that every time we get together. This year there will be 51 people (!!!) at our family gathering, and that doesn’t include any family members of one brother and one sister. I’m in charge of asparagus and the Easter egg hunt. I have about 120 plastic eggs locked and loaded with non-melty candy. (Did you know they made Froot Loop jelly beans??) The older kids will do the hiding. I’ve allowed about 10 eggs for each seeker … hope that’s enough!
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Becky, Froot Loop jelly beans or news to me! I think ten eggs apiece is generous. Sounds like you’ll need quite a bit of asparagus, too!
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I’ll have to look up these jelly beans…
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Vickie, this brought back so many memories – for me and for being a parent. Growing up, we had big Italian Easter dinners. Oh, the amazing homemade pasta. I’ll never taste anything that good in my life again. But my nonna insisted in making these breads shaped like lambs with a hardboiled egg in the middle – and baking was NOT her skill set. We joked we could use them as door stops.
As a mom, I was always on the lookout for an easter egg hunt for Eliza. We don’t have family in SoCal, so it’s always just us. One year, we wound up at a hotel in Century City with a few kids who happened to be in LA with their families!
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Oh, El, pasta for Easter sounds heavenly! We always had roast or ham. Some of the small towns I covered for the newspaper sponsored city-wide egg hunts. They’d be staged by age groups. Watching toddlers topple each other as they picked up eggs always made for cute pics!
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Growing up, we had egg hunts in our front yard. I also distinctly remember getting chirping chick toys one year. I’ll be the outlier and say that I actually appreciate sunrise services; it’s just so quiet and beautiful and reflective during that time.
P.S. We do have spring break, and while we’ve gone a-visiting relatives in past years, we’re doing a stay-cation this time around.
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Sometimes a staycation is the very best kind of holiday, Jen!
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I’m heading to visit my family for the weekend, and looking forward to it. I haven’t spent Easter with them in a number of years. Not sure if I will be involved in any egg dyeing, but I’m sure we will be hiding and hunting for eggs at some point, which is always fun.
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Mark, have a great visit with your family!
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I loved Easter as a kid–the dyeing of the eggs, the hunting for the eggs, THE CANDY!, the Easter ham and my grandmother’s cheese potatoes, and THE CANDY!
And then once I was a grown-up, Robin and continued the tradition of dyeing and hiding eggs and preparing ham and cheese potatoes–but with a terrific addition to the celebration: RAMOS FIZZES–even better than candy!
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I’m following the bunny trail to your house this year, Leslie!
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Leslie, that sounds like a great chaser to chocolate eggs and bunnies!
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Oh gosh, I so remember those white patent leather shoes, white gloves, and big hat! Of course, all of those hats sometimes made it hard to see past our own pew!
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Haha, Kathy! But we looked fab!!
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