Easter Traditions

Sometimes having a tradition is a good thing. Then again, sometimes when traditions come to a complete halt and things get rattled irreparably it can also be a good thing.

Easter used to be like Christmas for my family. It was huge and smothered with traditions as old as, well, I can remember. The main difference between Christmas and Easter was that Easter had a heck of a lot more food, and presents were replaced with Easter Eggs. Hundreds upon hundreds of Easter Eggs. This is no exaggeration either, as it was also tradition for the older kids to fill and hide said eggs when they reached a certain age. Of course, this also meant we had to be guides for the younger kids to help them locate the eggs during the massive ordeal known as The Great Easter Egg Hunt. And heaven forbid we forgot to count how many eggs we hid, which usually meant we were out searching for any strays while the children were busy opening the eggs and surveying their plunder!

But the most traditional thing about Easter was the food arrangements. It always seemed like if you brought something and people liked it, you were stuck bringing that something forever and ever… and ever. For me, that was my deviled eggs. I made them one year for the simple fact that they always seemed to be the first things to go off the appetizer table, and with such a big family, we should have enough for everyone to eat half a dozen or so. That is only three eggs, so it’s not really as much as it sounds like, but the average person probably will consume two, and my family is anything but average. Of course, doesn’t everyone say that, so really, we probably are all average, right? Anyway, so I brought ten dozen deviled eggs (which is five dozen whole eggs if you did your math) and my Aunt Bobi-Jo brought her couple dozen as well, and, well, they were all consumed. But we both made our deviled eggs differently, so for a couple years we both brought them for Easter, but somehow I was conned into making them for Thanksgiving as well. I had to draw the line there before it encroached up Christmas Eve, Fourth of July and Yom Kippur.

This went on for years until I noticed that there were leftovers one year and was shocked. Had we actually plateaued on deviled eggs? Did this mean I could get by with maybe only making eight or nine dozen next time? Well, after my grandma passed away, it seemed like keeping traditions alive was, well, not a priority, and eventually the holidays became less attended, or in some cases ceased altogether. We hosted Easter at our small house a couple years for the few people in our family who were interested, and that was, uh, interesting to see just how many people can fit into the house with tables randomly placed to eat at. I know we’ve held birthday parties and have been known to reach the forty-two persons mark on a rainy fall day, so hosting for seventeen should have been easy, but it was cramped due to the table arrangements. But at least there were deviled eggs to keep everyone happy!

Sometimes I long for the days of big family get-togethers, along with all the craziness that goes with it. Sometimes I miss having those elaborate Easter Egg hunts, both finding and hiding the mountain of plastic eggs that were reused and replenished year after year. Sometimes I miss making ten dozen deviled eggs, boiling and peeling for hours upon countless hours… okay, I don’t really miss that part. But you know, sometimes you have to look at what you have now and appreciate it for what it is, and not look back at what once was and wonder why things had to change.