Before you read this entry I think I need to post a warning of sorts. Many people tell me that I don’t remember things accurately or that I exaggerate or fabricate events and details of events. To this I respond, everyone experiences their world in a unique way. What you feel, see and believe is in fact your reality. So if you version of the past doesn’t match mine exactly maybe it may be because I choose to remember mine in a different way. Or maybe even while I was living it as the present I perceived it in a different manner. But this is my blog so I will present things as I recall them and hopefully if you were there it will remind you of things from your past even if you memories don’t match mine.
I can remember as a little girl how excited I was at Easter time. We would have spent the past “thirty some” days preparing for Easter through our Lenten sacrifices. I usually gave up candy or something similar, even though in reality we didn't eat candy very often at my house. It probably would have been more of a sacrifice to give up carrots or something that we ate regularly as snacks. When Holy Week finally arrived I would attend the Holy Thursday Mass with my family, followed by Good Friday services and then finally Saturday. I know that the Holy Week services were suppose to mean more to me than Saturday but remember I was just a kid. Saturday meant there were eggs to dye and the town's Easter egg hunt to attend. The egg hunt wasn't anything elaborate but you always got a small bag of candy at the end and to me that was really special. Oh and I usually, conveniently forgot that I had given up candy for lent or maybe I just thought it was close enough to Easter that it didn't matter. When we returned from the hunt it was time to color Easter eggs. This was always a big production at my house. Well, first of all you have to remember that there were usually 9-11 children involved in coloring the eggs. That in itself made it a major undertaking. We each got a certain number of eggs and each tried to create the best egg. We didn't just dye them; first you would decorate it with crayons or rubber bands and then dip it in one dye after the other trying to make yours the prettiest one on the table. I have never lost the fascination with this process and I have never celebrated an Easter without dying eggs. When Saturday night finally arrived there were Easter clothes to get ready for church in the morning. We usually had a new dress, even if Mama had to stay up all night finishing sewing them. I just knew that when you woke up there laid out on the couch would be 5 Easter dresses with bonnets and sometimes white shoes and gloves. My oldest sister didn't have her clothes laid out because she was 5years older than I was and too mature for this ritual. I always loved the way it looked with the pastel colors next to the white bonnets, shoes and gloves. The Easter bunny would visit in the night and leave each of us an Easter basket on the table but we couldn't touch it until after we attended Mass. When we finally returned from mass we would take turns hiding the colored eggs and finding them, while we nibbled at (or gulped down) our candy. If the weather was warm we would hide the eggs outside but living in the Nebraska panhandle meant that many Easters it was still coat weather or it might even snow. My senior year of High School we moved to Casper WY and we would joke about our Easter blizzard (which many years turn out not to be a joke) and usually eggs had to be hidden inside. I continued many of these traditions with my girls, the clothes laid out on the couch with bonnets, gloves and white shoes and the Easter baskets on the tables but the Easter bunny started hiding plastic eggs filled with candy or coins that were hunted before going to church. I think he realized that real eggs can be chewed up or smashed by a cat that finds them in the night and eggs that go unnoticed in the house start to stink after a couple of days. My girls are all grown now and are starting traditions of their own but we still come together on Saturday afternoon with the grandchildren and color eggs and we still vote on which is the prettiest, the most creative and the funniest. We still hide Easter eggs over and over again with my grandson that is old enough to understand how the game is played and we all take turns hiding and hunting. In fact he enjoys this game so much that we play egg hunt multiple time during the year whenever he is in the mood. It is our own version of hide-n-seek. This year we will dye the eggs and have our hunt on Saturday since that is when all three girls can be home. We will celebrate our oldest daughter’s 30th birthday on the same day, but that is another story all together. We hope to welcome a new baby to the family that weekend also, but babies don't always cooperate with your plans when it comes to their arrival. I know that when the weekend is over and we all return to work or school we will take with us the memory of another Easter spent as a family passing on memories and traditions to the next generation. Thanks God for the little things that make life so sweet. Easter Blessing to you and yours.
