I woke up this morning and went outside to check the mail forgetting it was Sunday, which is often the case since I have been working from home. One day often runs into another just like when the children were little and I was at home caring for them. My neighbor calls out ‘Happy Easter!” Easter? Its Easter? How did that happen? Another holiday had sneaked up on me. Ever since my children became adults holidays have lost their importance. Everyone is working and there are no more presents to buy and keep hidden until the big day. No more little children to color and hunt eggs. No more Easter baskets to fill. Instead you wait until the days after the holiday to stock up on all the items the store drastically mark down.
There is a sadness in forgetting a holiday that you once held so dear. When I was little Easter was not only a religious holiday it was the great Feast of Spring. It symbolized the end of the cold days of winter and the beginning of that glorious time of year that was all about playing outside. Easter was the last of the great family get togethers until Thanksgiving and Christmas rolled around again. All the cousins, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, and uncles got together to celebrate the turning of the wheel. The survival of the cold dark months of winter.
We ran in the fields and picked flowers as we hunted for the eggs we had colored the night before. We traded candy from our baskets and we ate and ate and ate. Ham. Always ham on Easter and deviled eggs. Oh how I loved my great-grandmother’s deviled eggs. The men would talk about planting and the women would cook, opening canned green beans and chow chow from the prior seasons harvest. It was heaven. Laying in the grass after all that playing, coming down from a sugar high, just watching the clouds drift in the sky and feeling the warmth of the sun on my face. Easter was that magical time when the winter was behind use and all the hope of summer lay before us.
Easter represents the new beginning the rebirth of the earth after the death of winter. It is hope and life and promise. So enough of this nostalgia. Even though my children are adults and there are no little ones yet, they still expect to eat and eat and eat on Easter so I take may place in the kitchen and carry on that family tradition but since I forgot, there will be no ham but there will be my grandmother’s tradition Sunday roast which I started cooking last night and my great-grandmother’s deviled eggs which I inherited.
What are your memories and traditions for Easter? Share them with us in the comments.
