Another one bites the dust
Coloring Easter eggs has always been a pretty big deal in our house. Each year after the Good Friday Tenebrae service at the Lutheran church we've attended for more than 20 years, we'd head home and color eggs as a family.
Like our Halloween pumpkin-carving rituals, the egg coloring involved everyone competing for the very best design. Also like our pumpkin-carving rituals, someone usually ended up in tears or -- during the teen years -- huffing off to their room for a host of hormonal reasons having nothing to do with the design competition.
But it was fun. Really. We have lots of happy pictures and warm fuzzies to prove it.
This year for the first time ever, we won't be coloring Easter eggs. All the girls live on their own and our only grandson lives too far away to come over for a dip in the dye with Grandma and Grandpa. And I really can't see egg coloring as a couple on the Good Friday agenda for me and Jim.
So we'll go eggless this year.
There's a domino effect to the decision to not color eggs. Having no colored eggs impacts our Easter morning breakfast, as we've always eaten our colored eggs on Easter morning, along with blueberry muffins and sausage links. It made for an easy holiday breakfast before the family dashed out the door for church service in our new Easter outfits.
Oh, that's another thing: We're not buying new Easter outfits this year. There's really no reason to as we have plenty of dressy duds and really shouldn't spend the money this year.
With the delivery of Easter Bunny baskets having ceased delivery last year (although the girls will always get SOMEthing from E.B. but don't tell them that), it seems the last vestiges of our old-time Easter celebrations have bit the dust. The children are grown; the traditions of childhood are no longer relevant.
I should be sad about the change, as I've always worked quite hard to create memorable holiday traditions for the girls. But that's the key and the reason I'm not too broken up about this Easter's empty nest: It's always been work ... a lot of work ... done mostly by Mom.
So I'm kind of glad that this year I don't have to color eggs or go shopping for outfits (especially when the girls -- and I -- often preferred black to the pinks and yellows and greens typical of Easter finery) or stay up waiting for kids to fall asleep just so I can fill a few baskets or help three little girls crack and peel and wash their colored eggs for breakfast.
Nope, we're having an adult-only Easter celebration for the first time. First up: A breakfast menu of Lemon Ricotta Pancakes with Lemon Curd and Fresh Raspberries. Then Easter service, with our oldest and youngest daughters joining us.
After that, it's anyone's guess. We're all grown-ups now and I no longer need to set the day's agenda in advance.
Except for one thing, that is: I need to ensure time for a Skyping session with Bubby. I want to see my handsome grandson dressed in his new Easter outfit as he tells Grandma all about his basket of goodies from the Easter Bunny and the colored eggs Mommy peeled for him for breakfast, all before he, Mommy and Daddy dashed out the door for Easter service.
Knowing the beloved family traditions that once defined Easter in our house are continuing with the next generation make it much easier for this generation to bid them farewell and move on.
Today's question:
What's your favorite Easter tradition?
My answer: Breakfast as a family. Family dinners have always been a given in our house, but family breakfasts happened rarely ... usually only on Christmas and Easter.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Reader Comments (7)
This is really sad to say, but we gave up Easter a few years ago. We used to go to a friends house and celebrate with their family by having a huge Easter egg hunt with tons of kids, so many kids we would have w hunts, on for the little kids (under 4) and another for the older set.
This year my daughter requested we color eggs, so we will be doing that and I'm making a roast for dinner. I miss the days of celebrating with friends!
See? This is why I would've been a terrible mother. I probably never would have even told them about the Easter egg coloring tradition because of all the work (and mess) involved. Not to mention having to put together an Easter basket. Oy!
Enjoy your relaxing Easter this year. You've earned it.
As a kid, my favorite traditions were decorating eggs and getting a new Easter dress. But since we don't go to Church, we don't have any grown-up Easter traditions.
My mom would make each of us a peanut-butter-filled chocolate egg. The eggs were about the size of an orange -- so pretty darn big. She would decorate them with frosting, complete with our names so there would be no fights over which was whose (although we still fought over them). Finding the egg sitting at my place at the kitchen table was the best part of Easter.
Lavender and yellow will always signify Spring to me because of identical Easter dresses Granny bought for me and Jane--hers yellow, mine lavender, years and years ago.
I'm happy that you still have two daughrters near enough to attend church with you and Jim on Easter. Nobody off in Korea, nor Texas, California, or Oklahoma. Be happy together!
Dyeing eggs for sure. We will be doing it the day before Easter with my parents.
As for skyping, I am setting them up for that when I am there for Easter so they too can video conference with their grandkids!
Now that the girls are grown, we rarely color eggs. I'll make a brunch, but that's about it. Ben might get an easter gift though!
It's hard to let go of those traditions, I know. I am very lucky that one of my daughters and my sweet grandson lives here in my town, and we plan to hunt eggs in my yard and have an Easter luncheon. Both of my daughters are pregnant now, and I'm dreading having a new grandbaby 6 hours and two states away. I feel for you. Thank goodness for Skype!