Easter Traditions?

[Amaze]

As some of you already know, I am a HUGE tradition fan of all holidays and love to hear about what other people do on the day! I think part of it has to do with moving away from my family after college and not being around them a lot-it is nice to hold onto those special things that made the holiday a holiday!

What are your favorite Easter Traditions/Memories?

Mine are:
-Sunrise Service at our church where we'd always have a balloon launch and pancake breakfast
-Dad would always go home first to "meet" the Easter Bunny and help him hide eggs (that way we didn't find an egg at Christmas the next year!)
-Easter Bonnets, dresses, and White Patent Leather Shoes and Purses!
-Hand dying all of our Easter Eggs on Good Friday
-TWO Easter Baskets, one at my house, one at the Grandparents
-Spiral Ham and Hashbrown Potato Casserole
-My birthday (Easter has fallen on it twice)!

This year is extra-special, my parents and Matt's are coming to visit and spend the weekend with us for the first time all together! We won't do the traditional stuff necessarily, but I'm looking forward to starting our own traditions!

What about you all? (Even if you are not an "Easter" religion, I am not but use the occasion to celebrate with my family out of respect-they praise the Easter Miracle and I embrace the miracle of life and Nature's re-awakening:))

[momof1chi]

Well we (family) attend church together that morning. Enjoy the easter egg hunt at church but dad (poppy) leaves early to help the easter bunny hide eggs. After church we all (approx. 25) gater at my moms house and have a big meal. Then after that we have the egg hunt at the house. The kids also color eggs that day at my moms. We have started a new tradition of reading a verse from the bible that my grandmother liked in her memory.
Chassi and Chili

[islandbabies]

Awww Lys, you must miss being back at "home" with your family! But it sounds like it's going to be a great Easter for you and Matt! :wub:
No special traditions here, holidays were always nuts at our house. LOL. But this year, I do want to dye eggs. I don't know what happened with dyeing eggs last year.

[Romans Mom]

My two sisters and I had the whole Easter tradition of new white gloves, lace socks, patent leather mary jane shoes, Easter bonnets, Kate Greenaway Easter dress (always had a hidden pocket, LOL), a white Spring fashion purse, all to be worn to church where we participate in the Easter Programs and later in the choir's Easter special which I always narrated with a university science professor. Apparently we had good speaking voices. LOL My mother taught Sunday school, so it was part of our lives, even if we really didn't want to do this. LOL I appreciate it now more than then. ;-)

As Children, all three of us were always invited to appear in a local television Spring fashoin show for the local upscale store where the clothes were purchased. I'm sure anyone who bought there was in the fashion tv show. LOL

We were never induldged with Easter gifts since the clothes were enough, but each of us had one Easter basket that was hidden behind a chair by the Easter Bunny, somewhere in the living room...like that was hard to find. LOL. It held a bit of candy (can't forget Pete, the hollow choclate bunny that would get his ears eaten off first), the eggs we had dyed the day before, a small stuffed animal chick or bunny, and a tiny wind up chick or bunny toy. The fun of that was "finding it" and them rehiding it several time throughout the day until the large family dinner was served. Aunts, Uncles, Grandma's, Grandpa's...etc.

High school church youth group meant all of us spending the night at the church, so we would be sure to be ther for the Sunrise service. We never slept and played all night volley ball! LOL Then would be in charge of the candle lighting ceromony. This was my tradition, and I loved it, still appreciate it, and will always cherish it.

[Amaze]

My two sisters and I had the whole Easter tradition of new white gloves, lace socks, patent leather mary jane shoes, Easter bonnets, Kate Greenaway Easter dress (always had a hidden pocket, LOL), a white Spring fashion purse, all to be worn to church where we participate in the Easter Programs and later in the choir's Easter special which I always narrated with a university science professor. Apparently we had good speaking voices. LOL My mother taught Sunday school, so it was part of our lives, even if we really didn't want to do this. LOL I appreciate it now more than then. ;-)

As Children, all three of us were always invited to appear in a local television Spring fashoin show for the local upscale store where the clothes were purchased. I'm sure anyone who bought there was in the fashion tv show. LOL

We were never induldged with Easter gifts since the clothes were enough, but each of us had one Easter basket that was hidden behind a chair by the Easter Bunny, somewhere in the living room...like that was hard to find. LOL. It held a bit of candy (can't forget Pete, the hollow choclate bunny that would get his ears eaten off first), the eggs we had dyed the day before, a small stuffed animal chick or bunny, and a tiny wind up chick or bunny toy. The fun of that was "finding it" and them rehiding it several time throughout the day until the large family dinner was served. Aunts, Uncles, Grandma's, Grandpa's...etc.

High school church youth group meant all of us spending the night at the church, so we would be sure to be ther for the Sunrise service. We never slept and played all night volley ball! LOL Then would be in charge of the candle lighting ceromony. This was my tradition, and I loved it, still appreciate it, and will always cherish it.

What wonderful memories Barb! Thanks for sharing! It sounds like Easter was a very special holiday in your house! I can't believe the similarities between our youths! I used to have a lock-in @ church as a teen the night before Sunrise Service so that we would all be there to lead the service too! And we never got much sleep either, LOL!

[Chloe's Mom]

Well...did I mention I'm Italian? LOL

We have quite a few similar traditions, of course...(I'm second generation - my Grandparents both came from Italy - Mom born here.) But, the ones that I remember most are the ones that I never appreciated when I was young because they were "different."

We're Roman Catholic, and of course that meant no meat on Fridays from Ash Wednesday to Easter. And I mean NO meat - we were convinced as kids that to eat even one slice of pepperoni was the equivalent of committing capital murder! lol Of course, Mom maintained that "forgotten sins were forgiven"...amazing how my brother Rock's memory always got worse during Lent!

Also during Lent, we were encouraged to give up one of our favorite things; a small way to emulate Christ's Sacrifices, and to also give of our time to others who needed our help (I always gave up Chocolate...which was TORTUROUS...but, boy, did that Easter Bunny look HEAVENLY to me in the basket on Easter morning! Mom always got me the Solid Chocolate one with the REALLY long ears!) :) When I was young, my "volunteer" work was to dust the pews in the Church every week, and straighten the programs and missalettes. I'm not really sure who I was helping by doing that, come to think of it...but I'm pretty sure Mom suggested it because she thought the hard work there in the chapel would encourage me to think of all my impish misdeeds throughout the year, and that I would feel dully chastised! She was right - it always worked...at least for a while! ;)

We colored Easter Eggs, and then hid them, but I don't remember that being such an enormous deal...maybe I wasn't so jazzed about it because I knew that meant a week of eggsalad sandwiches for school lunches... :(

I always looked forward to Palm Sunday, both for the powerful message of the Crucifixion, which always awed and humbled me...and for the Palms themselves! My Grandmother wove beautiful, intricate crosses from them, and they were tucked EVERYWHERE in the house - in drawers, peeking from behind doorjambs - and they fascinated me! She would always say, in her broken English, thick with accent after 60 years in America, "When you see them...you THINK what He did for you...an' you NEVER forget!" I still have some...dried now, and very fragile...

The MAIN thing I remember was the food! We Italians define our holidays by the food we eat - lol - and Easter was a DOOZY! We kept our fast until after Mass, which usually meant noon. More often than not, we would make the trek to New York to my Grandparents' house, and amid kisses and greetings of "Buona Pasqua!" (Happy Easter), my family, my six sets of Aunts and Uncles and 20 cousins would sit down to eat.....antipasti of olives, roasted peppers, hunks of melt in your mouth cheeses and fresh homemade Italian bread...Nonna's Easter soup of creamy broth with sausage and escarole greens...roasted lamb...egg tortas drizzled with olive oil...manicotti and lasagna...pani festi: braided egg bread with whole eggs baked inside...salads with romaine, arugala, chicoria, garden tomatoes and LOTS of garlic...and sweet Ricotta Pies, powdered sugar dusted Pizzelles, decadent slices of Almond Torrone, and huge mountains of Anise Biscotti!

When each of my Grandparents came to America through Ellis Island as teenagers, alone, they were classified on the Ship's Manifest rolls by occupation as "peasant." While they may have come from families of humble means, they were incredibly rich in love, faith and tradition, and I will be eternally grateful that they instilled those gifts in all of us!

Thanks for starting this thread, Lys...you just gave me a wonderful evening of memories! :)

[2Chiwawa]

My background is non-practicing Jewish and I was Catholic for awhile. One of the things I loved was how Easter and Passover complement each other in the Catholic Holy Thursday service. When I was involved with my first Catholic Easter Week I was just transported to a beautiful religeous state seeing the Passover Meal "acted out" in the Holy Thursday litergy that deals with the Last Supper which, of course, was a Passover Supper. That year Passover and Easter fell together and I had the pleasure of celebrating Holy Thursday and then leaving church to eat the Passover meal with my Jewish family.

As far as childhood memories go, we were very close to a blended Jewish/Catholic/Italian family when I was little. We always went to their house to celebrate Passover and Easter together. The grandmother who had been raised Jewish and knew all Jewish cooking had learned to cook Italian food for her Italian husband. She was considered the best cook in our town. They had two kitchens in their house and she cooked so much food that she used both kitchens.

We would arrive to see the dinner table spread with all the traditional Jewish Passover foods AND all the traditional Italian Easter foods. You could have matzoh ball soup and roast chicken AND stuffed artichokes and stuffed pasta shells all in the same meal. I remember eating until I was about dead and then eating more.

I will never forget the fun we had and all the blessings that we did NOT take for granted.

[Muse]

My 4 Grandparents and my Father were born in the Slovakia part of the now non-existent Czechoslovkia. I was raised by my maternal Grandparents in that tradition. So we prepare all the traditional ethnic foods, a large custard ball made out of eggs, milk, sugar in a double boiler and then put in a cheesecloth to drain and shape like a ball; paska, which is homemade bread with raisins and a braided cross on top made of dough; ham, kielbasa, pagach which is basically pizza dough only with mashed potatoes mixed with browned onion and white cheddar cheese, eggs, horseradish and honey for the bitter and sweet balance of life, lamb shaped butter, nut and poppyseed bread.

On Saturday at noon, we put food in a basket and take it to the Church hall to be blessed and then we have the contents for dinner.

Many times we've thought of putting these traditions to rest but my Grandparents are all gone now and I do it because it keeps them alive for me. They are with me all the time, I can feel them nearby at all times.

Joe is Polish and very non-traditional, but he is not first generation American like me, he is about 3rd and further away from his ethnic roots.