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Flashback Friday #3 – Easter Memories

Mocha With Linda has started her very own meme. This is how she describes it:

This new meme’s purpose is to have us take a look back and share about a specific time or event in our lives. It will be fun to see how similar – or different – our experiences have been!.

I am enjoying this meme a lot. Grab the button and the link and come play along. Linda’s theme this week is:

What was Easter like when you were little? For example, did you receive a basket with toys and candy? Was the Easter Bunny part of your family’s celebration? Did your family integrate both secular and spiritual aspects of the day? Did you dye Easter eggs. . . .and did your family eat them afterward? Did you usually get a new outfit? (Post a picture if you have one!) Does any Easter stand out particularly? You might also share how your Easter today is similar or different to your childhood.

I always got a new dress and new shoes for Easter. Shopping for it would be a big deal. Gram always got a new dress for Easter, too. We made it a girl’s outing and enjoyed lunch downtown, too. Easter morning we would don our new dresses for the first time and go to church. Easter was first and foremost about celebrating Jesus.

After church there was always a luncheon with a smorgasbord of food and tons of desserts, children’s performances, and singing was usually part of the program as well. It seemed like my Sunday school teacher was always full of ideas for skits and plays and party games. The afternoons were usually lively and full of fun.

When we got home, Gram would send me to my room to change into play clothes. When I emerged from my room an Easter Basket would await me. Gram had usually hid a half-dozen of the eggs we’d colored and I would look for them. Sometimes she would oblige me and hide them two or three times before insisting I return them to the fridge. Yes, we ate the eggs.  As a child I knew about the Easter Bunny, but I don’t ever remember believing him to be real.

As an adult, Easter is still all about celebrating Jesus. I haven’t bothered with the new dress and shoes for years now. The last time I colored eggs was probably 5 years ago for Sidewalk Sunday School. I have always attended both the sunrise service and the regular Sunday service on Easter. Our first two Easters together, Amoeba and I did the sunrise service and then went home. But last year we attended both services and we will this year, too, since Amoeba is playing music and/or singing in the service.

Thanks, Linda!  This was fun!

32 Comments

  1. As a child, we always attended High Mass at our Catholic Church. Loved the incense, the candles, and the choir.

    We never had an egg hunt at home. But I do remember coloring eggs and blowing the contents of the raw egg through holes in the shell to be cooked later.

    Nowadays, we don’t attend Mass at all and we don’t observe Easter.

  2. We tend to celebrate the pagan aspects of Christmas. Tree and party with gifts. Don’t go to Mass.

    I guess the major reason is the sex abuse scandals that have rocked the church. We are disgusted.

    1. Gigi — I can see why you are disgusted with the policies of the leaders of the Catholic church. I am sure you aren’t blaming God for their human failures.

    1. Mumsy — a big Easter dinner at home with family has never been part of my tradition. We have always gathered with our church family to eat.

  4. Quilly, I hope you get the opportunity to dye eggs again with some urchins who need to understand what Easter is all about!

    May Amoeba’s trumpet be true music to God’s ears on Palm Sunday and Easter!

    We’re considering going to the sunrise service on the National Mall this year. I really think this is the ‘best’ year for us to go as a family. I’ve floated the idea to them . . . now I just need to be STILL and know that GOD is in this too!

    1. Kelley — it is fun to share the egg dying and Easter story telling with kids. I added a prayer for your trip to the Mall for Easter – -and asked that the day be an enriching family experience no matter where God chooses for you to celebrate.

  5. All this reminiscing is making me yearn to color some eggs! I may have to pop out to the stor for an egg dyeing kit this weekend!

    Blessings
    R

  6. I love reading about your outing with your Gram. So sweet.

    I don’t bother with the new outfit either. We often get our last cold front on Easter weekend. I remember one year it was about 40 degrees and rainy and all the folks in their pastel and sleeveless or bell-sleeved dresses looked ridiculous!

    1. Linda – -I think when I got older I decided I didn’t need a new dress just to hide it under my coat while I shivered waiting for the sun! Nowadays I wear slacks to sunrise service. This year I may even wear jeans!

  7. Love the memories of your Grandma!

    I still like to get a new dress, if I can find one, though not new shoes. I don’t think I will even have time to look this year.

    Even as a child I thought it odd to have an Easter bunnydelivering eggs.. I didn’t believe in him — I just thought it odd anyone would make up such a thing.

    1. Barbara — I remember having the Easter Bunny conversation with my grandmother many times because I couldn’t figure out what a dang rabbit had to do with eggs, and since Gram never would have talked to me about s3x, I didn’t get a decent answer until I was an adult and learned a bit of church history.

  8. Our Easter was very similar. First going to church, then searching for our eggs, and later family gatherings. Pretty much still the same today.
    I enjoyed reading your memories!

  9. I’m pretty sure I never thought the Easter Bunny was real. I don’t think my kids did either. It was all just good fun.

    I’d love to do a sunrise service one year. Have a wonderful Easter!

    1. Joyce — I think the fact that the Easter Bunny is an anthropomorphous animal helps kids understand he’s just for fun. Santa, being human, is a little easier to believe in.

  10. I remember new Easter dresses! One year my dad told me to go to town and get a new Easter dress…he didn’t ususally pay attention to what his daughters wore – I remember being a little shocked when he told me to go to town and charge it.
    We always went to sunrise service…I still love it.

    1. Shelly — I don’t think my dad ever paid any attention to my clothes other than that they cost too much and when I got to high school I was expected to get a job and buy my own. My dad and step-mom saw that I had necessities, underwear, shoes, socks, etc., but if I wanted the stylish clothes like my friends wore, I bought them myself.

    1. Nessa — usually my unusual upbringing isn’t of significance, but when people say things like “always” and talk about the continuity of people and traditions in their lives, I can’t help but notice the stark contrasts.

  12. Ohhhhhh I forgot about this meme again! Dang it. Well… I’ll get to it. Your Easters were like mine for the most part. But I always had a new HAT too! And gloves…. But the emphasis wasn’t on SHOW – it was on Jesus! I just THOUGHT it was about show when I was little! Probably because everyone made such a big deal about how cute I was! LOL!

    I’m glad that you and Amoeba will enjoy the two services again this year. I don’t THINK I will do the sunrise service… but I don’t know… I could do it and then come home to await Amanda & Luz, and then go back. We’ll see.

    1. Melli — I only had one “dress” hat as a child. Gram wasn’t one for hats, either. We just don’t look good in them.

  13. This meme’s a great one; I love reading people’s memories, especially during all those “me too!” moments. My mother used to make beautiful dresses with matching coats for us, and *somebody* was always stealing my jellybeans and not ‘fessing up. LOL

  14. i only knew easter was near because about a week earlier (which i later learned was palm sunday) stalls would be full of crafty bundles of decorated wood and olive branches. while grandma was alive we painted eggs and baked potica (some kind of nut roll) and grandpa would decoreate the eggs with engraved ornaments.

    as you know, i don’t follow any religious belief but i do paint eggs in onion peels for easter.

      1. it’s no big deal – onion peels give a nice brownish-orange (or if you have red onion brownish-purple) colour. you just boil the eggs and the peels together, s’all

        1. Polona — I wonder why I have never heard of this? I must have not been listening whenever the info was shared! We use commercial food coloring, boiling water, and vinegar.

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