Ask A Wench - Easter Traditions

Christina here with this month’s Ask A Wench. As it’s Good Friday today, I thought I would ask the Wenches what their favourite Easter tradition is, or whether they have any favourite Easter ornaments or decorations? Turns out they have quite a few of both!

Pat:  When I was a kid, hats were a big deal on Easter. I LOVE hats. I have difficult hair and hats covered a multitude of sins. I could make a statement with hats. Of course, as a kid, it was my mother’s statement, but hats were cool. These days, I wear hats anytime I like, and I don’t need to take them to church on Easter.

When we had kids of our own, Easter egg hunts were the big tradition. My in-laws lived on an immense horse farm full of beautiful green grass and old walnut trees, and Easter Sunday tended to be lovely. All the little kids in the family ran madly around, or toddled about looking confused, carrying their Easter baskets and looking for the eggs the Easter bunny hid. Back then, we didn’t have the big plastic eggs to keep the candy safe. We had foil wrapped eggs. But some of those eggs were hard candy shells that looked just like real birds’ eggs.

Spring, trees, think about it … Yup. Our daughter picked up a real robin’s egg and proudly added it to her basket. The next year, we discovered plastic eggs.

Anne:  Easter in Australia comes in early autumn, so the weather is generally warm and sunny during the day and cool at night, and because Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays most people try to take the opportunity to go away for a short holiday and soak up the last of the good weather before winter. When I was a kid, we often went away to stay with friends in the foothills of the Great Dividing Range.

We'd hunt for chestnuts and walnuts, pick figs, hunt for mushrooms, and have barbecues in the bush. We'd make a rough fireplace out of river stones, and scour the surroundings for bark and fallen branches. They were very simple affairs: just chops and sausages, usually blackened because Dad was an impatient cook (and claimed they tasted better that way). We kids ate the meat on slices of bread — no plates for us — sometimes with slices of tomato and a lettuce leaf or two. The adults made tea in a billy over the fire, and the kids drank water from the creek. And then there was fruit, because autumn is our season of mellow fruitfulness, though without the mists. 

On Easter Sunday we kids would start the day with an Easter-egg hunt, and then it would be hot cross buns for breakfast. Sunday lunch was a bit like Christmas dinner — a roast, usually lamb, and roast potatoes, pumpkin, and other vegetables. And then we kids would be off outside to play, while the adults probably snoozed. These days, some of those traditions have faded. I help friends with littlies hide the eggs for the Easter egg hunt, which is always fun, and we'll often have a barbecue. Hot cross buns are always a feature, home-made or from the supermarket, and of course, there's always chocolate.

Mary Jo: Historically, people lived much closer to the natural world so it's not surprising that there are holidays celebrating the changes of season.  I've always assumed that Easter, with the theme of resurrection and new life was grafted onto earlier celebrations of spring.

I love autumn also, but spring is particularly joyous with increasing warmth and sunshine and flowers.  I was raised in Upstate New York, where Easter might come with snow.  We didn't have any special rituals. We went to church, had a nice dinner, and we all got our share of Easter candy, which was always welcome!

But what I loved most were the daffodils, which were generally coming up around Easter even if there was still snow on the ground. Tough flowers are daffodils!  To me that always mean spring and Easter. Celebrate!

Nicola:  When I was a child, Easter was special for its music and its flowers. Traditionally we spent the holidays, Christmas and Easter, with my grandparents which was great as my grandmother was an excellent cook who could be relied on to provide a lot of festive feasts from homemade hot cross buns to Simnel cakes. Music, however was the defining element of Easter. The whole family was in different musical groups so there would be rehearsals and concerts of all sorts, from my school Easter show to the religious services in church and sometimes even cathedrals. It was so much fun to be a part of the choir tradition. Meanwhile, back in his garden my grandfather would be tending his Lenten Roses, Helleborus Orientalis, which for some reason he always called Easter roses and brought into the house in pots to decorate the table at Easter dinner. They aren’t roses at all but they are very pretty and when I sold my parents’ house I found some descendants of his original plants in the garden there. I took the seed and now I have them in my garden too. They are flowering now, just in time for Easter.

Andrea:  My family did the traditional church and ham dinner for Easter, but the real highlight of the day was the Easter egg hunt! For some reason, my mother really got into creating an elaborate event. (My childhood art shows that I anticipated the hoopla!) Our house was set at the top of a gently sloping hill and small meadow, which was surrounded by woodlands and New England stone walls (which serves as the boundaries for the hunt.)

The suspense built in the morning while we waited for her to hide all the goodies. (No peeking! Though in later years, my older brother was known to resort to binoculars to get a competitive advantage!) There were chocolate eggs, cream-filled eggs, jellybeans in plastic eggs, and beautifully-painted hard boiled eggs. She also did a “name egg” which had our names lettered in elaborate script. If you spotted someone else’s name egg, you were NOT supposed to tell them where it was—but of course there was much chortling and hints of “you are getting colder!” The big prize was to find the Golden Egg—a hard-boiled egg painted in glittering gold!

Our friends were always a bit jealous hearing of the fun, and over the years as we went away to college, a number of them would ask if my Mother still did the hunt for us. She did! She loved that we still wanted to have it, and began inviting our friends to join in! (It was hilarious to see an Easter Egg line-up with 8 or 10 twenty-somethings ready to scramble for chocolate!)

Then of course, it was really exciting when she had grandchildren to start the whole kiddie fun again. As my niece and nephew grew older, another tradition developed as there were a lot of hard-boiled eggs. After the hunt, everyone gathered up the hard-boiled eggs they had found—including their name eggs—and there would been a “cracking” competition! One on one, you would tap blunt side to blunt side and pointed side to pointed side. If your egg cracked and your opponent’s didn’t, they won your egg. This of course got very heated, as strategies developed on how to tap with your egg to avoid cracking it. One Easter, things got quite boisterous, which led my fifteen-year-old niece to roll her eyes and announce, “I don’t believe this—we are so competitive that one can actually “win” Easter?” That comment has become family legend!

Susan:  Easter was such fun when I was a kid in our big extended Irish/Scottish-Italian/French family. My sisters and I would get pretty new dresses, bonnets, and shoes, and I loved dressing up on Easter Day. We'd wake up early, excited to look for our Easter baskets filled with chocolates, small toys, and other surprises (like my first two-wheel bicycle, a pink and white Schwinn). In Upstate New York, Easter Day could be very chilly, so often we wore coats, hats, even snow boots to church, which hid our pretty outfits, alas. After church, we would go to my grandparents' home, where lots of family would gather for a huge Easter feast and Easter egg hunt for the many cousins. 

Our maternal grandparents lived in a huge, sprawling Victorian "painted lady" with lots of nooks, secret doors, and back staircases, and we would run all over its three floors looking for the treats my grandmother tucked away. But sometimes, because Grandpa was a small-town doctor with offices in the house, there might be an emergency visit on Easter Day, and part of the main floor would be closed off behind pocket doors. Then Easter would become a hushed event until the patient was treated and gone. 

Another Easter memory – Grandpa sometimes gave us our shots on Easter (or on Thanksgiving)! I would line up with my sisters and cousins to be inoculated or otherwise checked out. We'd get licorice or a lollipop, and go on our merry way. But when I was very small, I remember wondering why Grandpa was sticking everybody with Grandma's hatpin. Little did I know . . . 

The extended family has grown smaller and the Easter fun we had with our own sons has also faded to quiet visits and midday dinner. But we have grandchildren now and the Easter Bunny is visiting again – and I'm helping by acquiring adorable stuffed bunny toys this year! 

Christina:  I follow the slightly pagan Swedish tradition of decorating birch twigs with coloured chicken feathers every year. You can use any colour you want, but I prefer to stick to yellow as that seems most appropriate to me. I also add little hanging decorations – some glittery eggs and a set of crocheted chickens that someone once gave me as a present. (They’d be easy to make if anyone wants to have a go).

To that I usually add some table decorations in the form of a whole flock of little chickens – I can never resist buying them so probably have way too many! Yellow and green predominate, but there are occasionally others. This year I found similar sized bunnies and sheep – my ‘flock’ is growing! After that, all that’s needed is some chocolate …

How about you – do you have any favourite Easter traditions or decorations?

Comments

[Lil]

I miss Easter bonnets. I always wanted to wear one of those wildly elaborate hats that featured in the news photos of the Easter Parade on Fifth Avenue. Unfortunately, by the time I was old enough to wear one, no one was wearing hats any more.
I also love the music, and the ceremony of midnight mass on Easter, and the light illuminating the darkness. It's a magnificent celebration.

[Mary T]

When I was very young it was all about the Easter bunny and all the goodies he would bring. However, as I got older the most important thing became the religious celebration.

Being Catholic and attending Catholic school, all of Holy Week was important. Classes were excused so that we could practice for or attend religious observations. We did still get our Easter basket, but we also received new clothes. If not a complete outfit we at least received new shoes or hats. This was important because we didn't have near the amount of clothes people have today.

Lovely post.

[Mary Jo Putney]

Christina, I've loved reading about how in Greece, with the Orthodox church, people attend a midnight mass, candles are lit and it's proclaimed, "He is Risen!" and the parishioners walk home through the dark streets with lit candles. Wonderful and spiritual.

[Christina Courtenay]

I never got to wear one either, Lil, but they are lovely aren't they! So glad you enjoy all the other things about Easter too.

[Christina Courtenay]

It sounds like you have some lovely Easter memories, Mary - thank you for sharing!

[Christina Courtenay]

It does sound very atmospheric, doesn't it! I was in Italy last week and there were lots of posters about Easter parades and so on - wish I could have stayed for that!

[Annette N]

Thank you so much for the lovely memories of Easter. We had pancakes on a Tuesday. We had ashes on our foreheads on a Wednesday. And on Good Friday, there was a true sense of sorrow. And of course, every year new clothes and shoes. And the Easter Sunday service was a reminder that we could be reborn.
I am probably wrong, but it does seem as though I have been blessed to have lived so long that the history of Easter in my family were so wonderful.
How in the world could such a very large family become so much smaller?

Hope everyone is ready for a terrific Easter.

[Christina Courtenay]

Thank you, Annette - hope you have a wonderful Easter too!

[Anne Gracie]

Mary Jo, I've attended that ceremony a few times and it's wonderful and quite moving.

[Kareni]

Thank you for sharing all those wonderful memories! I do have to admit to wondering, Susan, just how that Schwinn fit in your basket.

When my daughter was younger, we would hide plastic eggs inside our apartment or home. One egg would have a clue that would start the hunt for her basket. One clue would lead to another clue and them to another. We had fun with them... some clues would require she solve a math problem or translate something from Latin when she was studying that language. The Easter basket would always include chocolate.

I have a giftbag for my husband; he won't have to hunt for it, but there is some chocolate inside along with some non-edible things.

[Mary Jo Putney]

Anne, I'm glad to hear that reality matches my imagination. I'd love to see this sometime.

[Christina Courtenay]

That sounds like such fun, Kareni - hunting for clues is always a hit with kids, isn't it! Happy Easter and hope your husband has some chocolate for you too!

[Karin]

My mother was Jewish, but she loved hats, and she used to take me to the Easter Parade on 5th Ave. in New York on Easter Sunday. So wonderful to see all the hats ladies wore in those days!

[Donna H.]

I am going to date myself by saying one of the fondest memories I have of Easter, is Gene Autrey singing "Here comes Peter cottontail, hopping down the bunny trail..."
and the lovely Easter baskets filled with coloured straw, beautiful eggs in pastel pinks and yellows, and a chocolate bunny. New black shiny shoes and a dress with a big bow so I would look pretty on Easter morning when we went to church! Happy family times.

[Christina Courtenay]

How wonderful Donna - I’m loving all these memories!

[Laura Lee Hall]

I seem to have similar Easter traditions to all of you. Sometimes my birthday fell on or near Easter so I got a new dress, whether it was what I wanted or not.
Easter dinner at my Polish grandmother's house was very traditional and yummy. She would take a fresh ham, poke many holes in it and stuff them with a mix of salt, pepper and garlic and marinate it 3 days before baking!
When I was in high school, I decided to learn how to make Ukrainian eggs Not sure why, I'm not Ukrainian. But they are such works of art! It took me a week to make one egg!
When our children came along, we had Easter basket hunts. I thought it might take less time I never heard the end of it the year I hid the baskets in the clothes dryer! (No, it was not on. Who wastes chocolate!)
Laura Lee Hall

[Christina Courtenay]

Some wonderful traditions there, Laura, thank you for sharing! Ukrainian eggs sound intriguing. In my house we used to just paint eggs or draw on them with felt tip pens, not nearly as sophisticated :-)