This Easter was a little bit new tradition, a little bit old. Starting with the old: The ancient dying of the eggs…. Even though the boys are big and even though no one hunts for eggs anymore, and even though we have chickens that lay us beautifully- colored eggs most days, the one tradition we cannot let go of is dying eggs on Holy Saturday, mess and all.
A new tradition: In the Episcopal Church the first Easter service is the Easter Vigil on the night of Holy Saturday. In that service we literally go from dark to light as we move from Lent to Eastertide, from the sting of death to the hope of resurrection. The service is a lot like a midnight Christmas Eve service in that it ushers in a new beginning. For several years I have wondered what it would he like to celebrate Easter’s arrival at the Vigil and then spend all of Easter Sunday basking and celebrating in the gift of New Life – much the same way we do on Christmas morning, with a slow start, the preparation of amazing food, and just being together as a family with no agenda. Just us and the beautiful awareness that the light has won, that death has been conquered. This year we had that opportunity and we are soaked it up properly, and I have to say it is as lovely as I had hoped. If you ever have the opportunity to try Easter this way I highly recommend it.
Of course, the whole day was thrown off by egg dying and resurrection, so we hit up the McD’s after the Vigil and on our way to the grocery store at 10pm…
…so that we would have all the things we needed to make all the food Easter Sunday.
We turned the Remember banner around now that our Alleluia’s have been freed from the grave, I made the best deviled eggs ever. Also, menu inspiration came from one old and one new entertaining book.
And I whipped out the good china – some of my Nana’s and some of my wedding china – along with some Azalea’s from the front yard. (Note: The good china is so much easier to use now that the boys are old enough to hand-wash it themselves.)
So there you go, a little recap of our Easter 2019.
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