Easter is a holiday celebrated by many types of people. It holds a special significance for me, being Catholic, and I remember Easter growing up as a truly joyful time. There are many personal and family traditions in addition to the obvious religious traditions. The one tradition that matters most though is being with family and friends during Easter weekend to enjoy each other’s company, create new memories and recall memories of Easters long since past.
The specific Easter memory that stands out in my mind is when I was 10 years old. My family and I had recently moved into a new house in beautiful state of Georgia where we had 6 acres of wooded land. The space and privacy enhanced the event I most looked forward to when I was 10 years old – the Easter egg hunt! But before that took place, there were other traditions that took place. The first thing was getting into our church clothes for Easter Sunday Mass. My three younger brothers and I all wore white suits with yellow shirts and bowties. Then we went to church and it was crowded as usual, being that Easter and Christmas are the busiest times of the year. And even though the Mass was longer than usual, and even the usual mass was long for a 10-year-old boy full of energy, I stayed on my best behavior because the reward was the Easter egg hunt. When we got home from church, there was still one thing that needed done immediately before the Easter egg hunt – taking the family photo while everyone was still in their church clothes. After that, I changed out of my white suit and ate breakfast. While I was doing that, my parents went out in the yard to hide dozens of differently-colored, plastic Easter eggs filled with nickels, dimes, quarters and half-dollars.
After breakfast, the hunt was on! My parents stood in the yard and guided my brothers and I a little bit to try to make sure each of us got about the same number of eggs. While I sat down to count the change from the eggs that seemed like a fortune at the time, my parents setup the other important hunt – the Easter basket hunt! When I finally found my Easter basket that was hidden in the house, it was filled with so much candy that looking back, I don’t know how I never went into shock from eating so much sugar. Especially the infamous Cadbury crème eggs! The sugar from all of the candy was enough to tide me over until the huge Easter dinner, so I didn’t really eat lunch. And since Easter dinner was made up of so many dishes, my brothers and I would help mom the best we could. The signature dish that we only ate during Easter had ancient Slavic roots and it was called Easter cheese. It was essentially eggs, milk and sugar boiled and then cooled in cheesecloth. When all of the cooking was done and it was finally dinner time, we sat down to eat too many types of dishes to list. Then we all watched one of the classic movies together that would play on T.V. during Easter, such as The Ten Commandments or Ben Hur. The last parts I remember of that Easter are relatives from out of town calling to wish everyone a “Happy Easter!” and hear about how much candy my 10-year-old self received.