Easter Memories

by Diane Forrest

Easter is one of my favorite holidays.  It is the time we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus and the beginning of spring.  There is new birth everywhere, a fresh start.  There are new leaves on the tree, flowers blooming, baby birds hatching, grass is turning green and people are coming out of hibernation.

One of my favorite parts about Easter is getting that new Sunday outfit!   The Easter bonnet, bouffant hair do from sleeping on hard plastic rollers the night before, the kid gloves, the dress and White Shoes!  Ok...so people don't dress like that anymore, but I still get a new Easter dress every year.   The Easter bunny didn't bring toys, but he did bring candy.  Usually in my Easter basket was always some gift, either a necklace or earrings, and of course, the always present socks and underwear!  That's what my Easter bunny brought everyone.  As I got older he brought panty hose in eggs!  Remember L'Eggs??  He brought Russell Stover Fruit eggs and Nut eggs it was always a contest to see who was fruity and who was nutty each year.  He also brought Elmer's gold brick eggs and my daddy got the black jelly beans, because nobody else wanted them.

Easter morning was always tough too.  My brother and I would race to find all the eggs we had dyed the night before.  He was 13 months older, so I’m claiming that is what gave him the edge on me, cause in all my hunting years, I never found the most eggs.  We would spend the rest of the week taking those eggs to school in our lunch.

My brother's birthday was April 9, so one year on his birthday they had a Easter Egg hunt.  Now sometimes when my mother cooks, she occasionally forgets to turn on the stove.  This was one of those times.  They dyed the eggs, hid them, and all the children found them.  The problem started once they started cracking them to eat and they were all raw!  She told me it was around that time she discovered plastic eggs...so started hiding those instead!

While asking my parents about their favorite memories of Easter, I told them my favorite Easter memory didn't even happen at Easter!  This caused a chuckle from my dad who already thinks I’m a bit "dizzy".  On one of my son's birthday he had a Peter Pan party.  We were going to play a search for hidden treasure game using chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil.  Since I didn't want to put the chocolate just out in the yard, I thought about using the plastic eggs to hide them in.   My son and his friends still laugh about hunting Easter eggs in September!

Some families go out for Easter Brunch.  My favorite Easter meal is Ham, potato salad and deviled ham.  Since most of the members in my family don't like ham, I've been outvoted on that too, but I can always fix it for myself later.  What ever you’re Easter memories are, please remember to spend time remembering the reason for the day.  Share memories of your Easter's past with your family, and make new ones. 

Have a great weekend, and feel free to share some of your memories here.