Happy Easter to all those who celebrate, in whatever ways you choose.
When I was a child, Easter meant big baskets full of candy, scratchy dresses and a frilly bonnet. My Grandma often brought me to the little Episcopal church she attended most Sundays and I would fidget my way through the sermon, anticipating ham and hidden eggs to come.
Later, we would go to my Aunt’s house to meet up with the rest of the family. She had an egg shaped candy dish filled with little chocolate eggs and jelly beans. My grandma’s sister, Ida, brought Kulich — Russian Easter bread — and Grandma gave each Grandchild a hard boiled egg with their name painted on it.
In my adult life, Easter egg hunting takes center stage. We plan a whole party around the tradition. Friends and family have gathered at my house for over a decade of Easters to participate in our annual “Easter Egg Potluck”.
What is an Easter Egg Potluck?
Every family brings plastic eggs, filled with whatever their hearts desire, and all the adults hide them around our five acre property for the kids to find. It’s always fun to see what people put in them. I went to the bank and got a stack of $2 bills one year. My husband likes to hide one $20 and a variety of smaller bills. We’ve hidden special Golden Eggs and Gigantic Eggs. There is, of course, copious amounts of candy.
Each new year delivers its own, unforeseen excitement. One year, after hiding almost all the eggs (and there are a LOT of eggs), someone discovered a dead moose right in the middle of the egg hunting grounds. We had to collect and re-hide all the eggs on the opposite side of the yard before letting the kids loose. Another year, one dad got a little competitive and started unsubtly “helping” his son find eggs. When the other dads caught wind of this, we had a yard full of dads dragging their kids around and throwing eggs in their baskets.
Good Times.
My son and I go out every year, the day after Easter, to find any undiscovered eggs. There are always a few left in the woods. The “hunt after the hunt” has become a cherished family tradition of it’s own.
For years we had the party inside our home and served classic brunch fair. Eventually, as the children and the guest list grew, we moved it outside. We built fires and roasted hot dogs. We stopped drinking mimosas and started drinking sparkling cider. A few of the dads still enjoy a beer or two by the fire. I can’t begrudge them that.
Things change. This year will be the biggest change of all because we won’t be having an Easter party. There is so much snow, it would’ve taken a week to shovel out the fire pit. My husband just got home from a three month stint at work and I doubt his first thought was “Ooh! Let’s host a party!”.
Especially, because I’d be so busy cooking and stuffing a bazillion plastic eggs, I wouldn’t “have time” to chop firewood or shovel snow. You can guess who those tasks fall to. Sorry hunny.
Short of a last minute invitation to someone else’s Easter party *HINT HINT* we won’t be doing much of anything this year.
I’m okay with it. My son is 15 and steadily outgrowing all my favorite holiday traditions. I squeezed (forced?) a trick-or-treating session out of him last year. It was fun to tromp around the neighborhood with our crew of cousins, one last time. He begrudgingly obliged. He also let me know, in no uncertain terms, that it was indeed the LAST time.
At some point you just have to let it go and accept that it was fun while it lasted.
I suspect this is the case with our egg hunts. Though, I did get a 6 pack of plastic eggs. I plan to hide them Easter morning. He’s a teen and loves to sleeping, so i’ll have plenty of time to get tricky with it. He’ll be reluctant until I tell him they’re filled with money. Money talks.
This momma is going to get one, final easter egg hunt.
Everybody’s So Creative
Since it’s shaping up to be a nontraditional Easter, Our bunny is taking some liberties with the baskets. She’s trying something different and she will either be the Hero of Easter, or her name will be mud. Only time will tell.
We have traditional candies that grace our baskets year after year. The same jelly beans, robins eggs and other family favorites I’ve been eating since I was a kid. So, I thought “Why not try something different” That usually goes well right?
I got ahead of the game this year and ordered candy from Sees. Remember the whole Valentine’s Day fiasco? Well, I thought, anything worth doing is worth doing twice. I might as well spend too much money on Easter candy too.
At least I got it all squirreled away early and I didn’t have to do the usual, last minute scramble. Not all change is bad.
Let’s just hope it goes over like gangbusters…….And not like a lead balloon.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
In the meantime, I hope you have a lovely day. Whatever it is you’re up to, observing Easter or not. May you find some chocolate to consume, a loved one to connect with and some time to sit back and take it all in.
See you Thursday!
We have always loved our Easters at the Johnson's. This year was fun too. Easter at the Mountain is second best for sure. Maybe to become 1st best. Maybe we will all be at Alyeska next year together.
I remember attending a couple of these 🐣