Easter Is On Its Way

Its hard to believe that Easter is less than a week away. When I was a little girl my parents would buy me a new dress and new shoes for Easter. Sometimes I would get an adorable hat. My sister who is ten years older than me stopped wearing dresses in late middle school/high school. I wanted to be just like her so a few years later I protested. I don’t remember getting a new dress after I turned nine or ten. Easter mornings we would find our baskets had been hidden when we found our basket it was filled with candy and a stuffed animal. The best candy in that basket was the Easter Egg shaped bubble gum. Then we would have to find the eggs. Early afternoon we would visit my Grandma and Grandpa Bierman. We’d spend time with the extended family. Then we would head to the farm to see the Schroeder side of the family. I recall the delicious smells that filled the house as soon as you walked in. The egg hunt where each of the twenty-one grandkids had one egg (with their name on it) to find. The boys would throw theirs up in the air as high as they could and catch it. Doing so for as long as they could before it broke and once it did break I remember a few cousins getting egg tossed at them. By that time, I usually took refuge in the house. We would stay after everyone else left and visit until after sunset.

The Saturday before Easter the kids and I gather in the kitchen to color eggs. I usually put on some music, we talk and laugh while we take our time drawing designs on the eggs with white crayons before we dip them into the dye. It’s a wonderful time where we get to be together and not worry about the outside world since I shut off the phone and make the kids put away their tablets.

My kids get a basket with candy every year. Sometimes they get a stuffed animal, a book, a jump rope, sidewalk chalk, or butterfly net. Easter morning, we get up and hunt the eggs. After that we get dressed up and head to church for the pancake breakfast, where the men do all the cooking. After church we make a quick stop to see my parents but as my dad works a third shift schedule we don’t stay long. At home we relax, watch The Easter Beagle and wait for dinner. With the pancake breakfast being so late in the morning we tend to skip lunch on Easter and just have an early dinner. This year my youngest is making Easter dinner. He told me that I get to be his assistant. He’s really looking forward to overseeing dinner this year. I should probably get the final menu from him, so I know what to buy!