Easter

When my DDs were wee babes, I always said that I wanted Easter when they acquired significant others. They could spend Christmas with that family and Easter with me. Of course, I never really imagined that they wouldn't choose to be with us for Christmas anyway, but in this instance they listened to me. Go figure!
But seriously, Easter is the bigger holiday for me. I have always liked Easter. Even before I understood Easter. Easter meant church and special music and listening to dad sing in the choir. And when I was a teenager, it meant 3 services every Easter morn! And I loved it.
When I was young, my mother made us Easter dresses (there are 4 girls in the family and I the eldest). I remember one year she made us all dresses of yellow water silk. I liked that we were all dressed alike. Years later I learned 2 things about those dresses. First they were made from one of my mothers prom dress (must have had a HUGE skirt!) and Second that my youngest sister hated the dresses...turned out she got to wear them for a number of years as they were passed down. :D
New dresses...white gloves, new shoes and some years we even had hats! And yet I understood the trappings were secondary. We hid eggs and had baskets (I'm still using mine!) and we had family. This wasn't the overwhelming family of Christmas when the numbers were sometimes beyond counting, but a more personal family that often meant JUST the immediate people. I loved it. After church and the egg hunt, we had a great meal and then we played games, Flinch, Liverpool Rum, Boggle...all of us. I loved that too.
Then as a teen I learned to make pysanky, the Ukranian eggs that require repeated baths in different color dyes to create beautiful works of art. Now every year, starting on Ash Wednesday, we make pysanky.
We have picked up a few other traditions along the way. Pashka from a recipe that I found in a newspaper years ago. This is a low-fat version of the Russian treat that is made with yogurt and the family loves it. Romanian Almond bread, Greek trinity bread, Easter meat from a recipe my mother-in-law remembered from her childhood and always boiled eggs - red Greek ones, warm brown ones made with onion skins and of course, the colored eggs of my childhood. We have done as many as 3 dozen for the 6 or 8 of us that may be here! :D
I love Easter and I love the reason for the season! Thank you, Jesus.