Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Easter Celebrations

Ha! Just as you thought the flood of Easter posts was over, I bring you yet another! Easter is awesome. (And let's just establish right now that by Easter I mean Resurrection Sunday.) Even the pagans love it, but for different reasons. I love Easter not because it celebrates spring, heralding in a bout of terrible allergies and bright colors, but because Christ died on the cross and rose again. Life would be pointless without the resurrection.

Everyone celebrates Easter differently. And for Christians I think it can be hard to find the balance between celebrating the world's version of Easter and our version. My family tends to change it up a little each time, but here's what happened this year. :)


For us, the festivities always start on what my brothers call Easter Eve. Mom went to the store on the night of Good Friday and already our HEB Plus was out of most dessert and smallish hams. A friend gave us a lamb roast because she said there was something wrong with eating ham on Easter ;) But Mom still wanted ham, so we ended up with 20 pounds of it. 20 pounds! And we have to lug it up and down the stairs to our garage fridge every time we want some . . .

Anyway, we had plenty of meat :) Saturday afternoon we dusted off the plastic Easter eggs and opened the bags of candy. We limited ourselves to Reeses Eggs, Robin Eggs, mini KitKats (added later), and jelly beans in sour and Jolly Rancher flavors. All of this candy I can pass up without much trouble . . . until I get started. Hehe. We dumped all of the candy into a large bowl and stuffed the many, many eggs.



Next up was dying eggs. This is my favorite activity and I was quite proud of how mine turned out this year! Nothing fancy, just boiled eggs and a dye kit, but so much fun! After they were all displayed in the egg carton for a few hours, we peeled all the pretty shell off so Mom could make deviled eggs and seven layer salad (lettuce and spinach, green onion, bacon, frozen peas, Miracle Whip and sour cream, boiled egg, and Parmesan cheese!).



I'm pretty sure that's all we did for Saturday.

Sunday morning we made resurrection rolls. We started this tradition a few years ago and oh my goodness! They are so yummy. Crescent rolls with butter and cinnamon that you seal around a marshmallow. When you bake them, the marshmallow melts leaving an empty tomb when you tear it open :D


Then, of course, was the church service. I was a little bummed my allergies had stolen my voice because we sang some good Easter songs. Everyone was all dressed up; the men in full suits and the ladies in new dresses. (Yes, I still like to get a new dress for Easter). This year mine was a gauzy white maxi that I wore with a pink belt. We had lilies at the front of the church (gag!) that everyone got to take home after the service was over. I had the nice excuse not to touch them because I didn't want the pollen all over my dress ;)

After the service came the lunch, of course! Ham, lamb, and seven layer salad with deviled eggs, all of which Mom managed to prepare that morning and somehow she still made it to church (but we did take the baby for the Sunday School hour). Oh my heavens, it was good. The adults opted for the egg hunt before naps, so we "big kids" got on that.

It became the tradition a year or two ago for the three oldest kids to get to hide the eggs for the younger four. Then we dump all the candy into one big bowl instead of keeping it divided. Hiding the eggs is really fun. I like to make them difficult. I put one on top of a supposedly dead ant bed and another I dropped down into our tangle of dewberry vines. And then there's always putting them out of reach, too :) But we had to make some a little easier for the little boys. Everett (18 months) loved the hunt. It took him a while to get the hang of putting the eggs in his basket, instead of just holding them all. And every few eggs he stopped to eat candy.

That basically sums it up. We had lemon cake and candy afterwards and then naps. We didn't watch an Easter movie this year, but we have watched Jesus of Nazareth in the past. We had seen Risen several weeks before, and I highly recommend it if you're wondering about it! It encapsulated the importance of the resurrection and the effect it might have had on a centurion who crucified Jesus. And that is the true meaning of Easter. He died and rose again that He might give us life! The rest of the world will never be able to understand just how important Easter is.


~~~~~

I hope everyone's Easter was as good as mine! How does your family celebrate? Have you seen Risen yet? I'll be doing my monthly wrap-up on Thursday, so stay tuned :D

35 comments:

  1. We went to an Easter service, it was amazing! I loved this Easter, but I was super tired, so it didn't really do a lot.

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    1. Man, I was tired, too! Between work, school, and this allergy season . . . D:

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    2. xD Allergies were actually why I was tired. I had to weed the garden, and...yeah...

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    3. Imagine that! I guess it's the oak in our area. I never used to be bothered in the spring and now it's awful!

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    4. *facepalms* I tagged you for the Fact About Me tag, sooo sorry I forgot to alert you yesterday. http://theartofwritingforhim.blogspot.com/2016/03/a-fact-about-me.html

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    5. Oh, cool! I'll do it soon, I promise :D

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  2. It sounds like you had a fun Easter! We did an egg hunt as well and had some ham (not as much as you :) and some other yummy food. Happy belated Easter! He is Risen! :D

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    1. Thanks! It sounds like you had fun, too. He is risen indeed :D

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  3. Thank you for sharing how you celebrated Easter! It was really fun to read! We went to the Easter Sunrise service, the main service, and then for the little kids there was an egg hunt. :) So much fun! And you're doing a Monthly wrap up post? I'm doing one as well! They're super fun to write and help you yourself "wrap up" the month. =)

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    1. I'm so glad it was fun! I never know about this sorta post :P Oh, a sunrise service would be so cool!

      Goodie! I'll be on the lookout for your wrap up post :D

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  4. Wow, all of that food. *is hungry now* Sounds like you had a great Easter! We had a service, but it got cancelled due to sickness. So instead we just headed over to a friend's house, ate ham, and played ping-pong.
    My family did an egg hunt in the morning, too. My parents like to hide the eggs and then all of us have to find them. (Of course, your little brother's philosophy is right on. Find egg, eat candy from egg, AND THEN you look for more eggs. XD)

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    1. Just saw your button. *thumbs up* :D

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    2. Oh no! I've been kinda sick this week, too. I /think/ it's just allergies? But it's not fun. :(

      Ah, ping pong is one of my favorites!! We have a table in our garage but it's usually piled with junk. :P

      Haha. Yeah, Everett was in no rush to find the eggs. He figured out pretty quick that his brothers were leaving some easy ones for him. He's such a manipulative child.

      Thanks! All tutorials I had seen said to sign up for image editing websites in order to get an image URL, so I was kind of bummed. But your tutorial worked :D

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  5. We do many of the same things! Only...your dyed eggs look much better than ours did. Maybe because I let the little boys do it pretty much by themselves (after stripping them of their nice Easter shirts, of course). :)

    Oooh, your new dress sounds so pretty! I love getting a new dress for Easter (whether I need it or not). I did giggle a little at your beautiful description...gauzy white. I love white dresses. Unfortunately, I have a tendency to *ahem* spill things on my clothes (pretty much every time something goes in my mouth, some of it ends up on my shirt). My brothers tease me that I better have a dark colored wedding dress so that it will hide any spills. ;-)

    I got to fill and hide eggs this year too! Only...the egg hunt was cut short because out of the blue it started HAILING!!!!! Some of my siblings held out, running around in the slippery wet grass, saying "ouch ouch ouch" as BB sized hail pummeled them. The others went inside and called it good. We've been finding 'forgotten eggs'. I found one today. The chocolate had completely melted and the jelly beans too. (I didn't know jelly beans could melt.)

    Risen looks good. I hope we can see it soon.

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    1. Well, the eggs I shared were /mine/. Not all of them looked that great ;P

      Oh no! I get in these phases where I spill everything on myself. Thankfully it's been awhile since I've been awful at that. But I definitely changed before lunch! ;)

      What?! I definitely wouldn't have stayed out in hail . . . even for chocolate. Every now and then we forget about eggs, too. It's always funny to find them later. We were supposed to count them as we hid this year to avoid that, but my brother forgot, so . . . ;) I didn't know jelly beans could melt, etiher!

      Yes! I highly recommend it. But it is a little graphic toward the beginning. We took the 9 yr old and up and he did fine. I think I was the most disturbed. D: Overall a really fantastic movie!

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  6. It sounds like you had a lovely Easter, Abi! Ours was pretty simple, but one thing that we did that was super fun was reading a book for Easter. It started a month or so ago, and our whole family read it together every night (that we could) until Easter arrived! It's an awesome way to have more family time in an enjoyable way! (the title is Amon's Adventure) And it tells the Easter story from a different perspective...from someone who was alive at the time. (though Amon is a fictional character)

    I'm looking forward to your monthly summary!

    ~Hosanna
    HavingaHeartLikeHis.blogspot.com

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    1. Oh, I think I've heard of that book! Maybe? I'm not sure :P That's a really cool thing to do!

      Thanks, Hosanna :D

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  7. It sounds like you had a really great Easter!! Isn't it such a fun day? I just love Easter.:) Egg hunts are so much fun!!

    I haven't seen Risen yet, but I'd really like to see it soon!

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    1. Yes, I love Easter. The new dresses and fancy Sundays and family coming over probably helped when I was little, but I still love it without any of those things :)

      Yes, you should definitely see it, Grace!

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  8. Sounds like you had an excellent Easter celebration!

    My family went down to Virginia to celebrate with friends, so that was a lot of fun.

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    1. Awesome! Virginia is one of my absolute favorite states!

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  9. Sounds like you had a lovely Easter, Abigayle!! :) Oh my goodness, yes. Ressurection rolls are soooo good. We made them in youth group last week. Yummy! We teased the guys telling than that they put their 'oils and spices' on the wrong part of the 'grave clothes'. (They basically made a mess out of it, baked it, and ate it. ;P)

    *gets jealous at the mention of Jolly Rancher jelly beans* I'm a total Jolly Rancher and Jelly Belly fan. Candy is my writing motivation. ;)

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    1. Haha! That sounds like a lot of fun! I can't believe how good they are!

      Chocolate is my writing motivation ;) And I just realized I haven't had any in a couple days . . .

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  10. Easter is always really busy for our family...especially when it falls on a Sunday. *sigh* But we have some church traditions (like coming early and eating donuts at church with others who are willing to get up early. ;) and this year I recited a poem I wrote last year to those who came to the breakfast. *shudders* I hate getting up front, but several people came up to me afterward to tell me how blessed they were by it...so I guess that made it worth the nervous breakdown that afternoon. ;)
    Thanks for the post! It was fun to read about the things you did that day! :)

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    1. Doesn't Easter . . . always fall on a Sunday ;) It's neat that you have church traditions. Our church always buys lilies and we all dress up a little more, usually have an Easter sermon, but that's about it ;)

      How fun! I have definitely never written a poem I would be willing to read in public! But I always enjoy having done that sort of thing after the fact. Good job!

      Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it :D

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  11. Our Easter was really busy! We spent all Saturday getting ready, decorating, etc. Then on Sunday we had church in the morning, which was really good. Every year on Easter, we sing 'The Hallelujah Chorus' as a church, which is so much fun. And of course, all the Easter songs were just so, so good! Then we had family from Minnesota come down to spend the day, and oh my goodness, it was amazing! We read the Easter story together before lunch, and then just spent the day together. A then our aunt and uncle took some of us to see "Miracles from Heaven" Sunday night, which was so much fun! (And the movie was really good too! ;))

    Thanks for sharing about your Easter! It was so much fun to read your post. We had jelly beans as well. . .they didn't last very long at all. ;P They are definitely a favorite at our house!

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    1. Oh wow!! We definitely do not have the musical talent or numbers to attempt the Hallelujah Chorus! But that sounds lovely! Oh, I saw the preview for "Miracles from Heaven" when we went to see "Risen" and thought it looked pretty good.

      I know! I never think I like jelly beans, but then I can't stay out of them :P

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  12. Sounds like a lovely Easter, I had to swear of chocolate this year because of a diary allergy.

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    1. Aww, that's no fun! My mom and little brother have a dairy sensitivity :(

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  13. Ah, you're making me hungry! I missed out on Easter goodies and even an Easter service since we were in the States. :( It feels like Easter didn't happen at all, which is quite sad.
    But it sounds like you had a lovely time. The resurrection rolls are a fantastic idea I may have to try sometime...

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    1. Aw! Yeah, we used to travel for Easter when I was little, so it was always different, but I hate it when Sundays don't even seem like they happened! It totally throws my week off. Yes, you have to try the resurrection rolls. Super fun! But make sure you spread foil over the cookie sheet, because the tomb tends to ooze ;)

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    2. If you miss church on Sunday your perception of the week is completely screwed after that. #churchkidproblems XD
      They look delicious...I'm not a cook but my sister is, I'll have to twist her arm next Easter, mwahaha.

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  14. So glad you had such a great Easter! Mine was fun as well. Oh, I LOVE the quote you shared at the end there. :)

    And yes, I saw Risen! I really liked it. After the disgrace that apparently was Noah, it was refreshing to know that they didn't change much; they only added a few things. We were in the theater watching it and all of a sudden that Lucius character came on and I realized it was Draco Malfoy. :P

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    1. And I had to add that an AMAZING Easter song is Watch the Lamb by Ray Boltz. I think that's how you spell his name. :P Not sure. :)

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    2. Thanks! It was a last minute addition ;)

      Ugh, yeah, we watched "Noah" knowing it was not the Biblical account, but also knowing someone did their research, because of the Biblical details that /were/ included. It was . . . interesting. Theoritically stimulating, I guess, but definitely bizarre. I like "Exodus: God and Kings" better. It was a pagan's attempt still, but I liked the elements of Moses's human side that he added. There were as many good things he brought out as heretical. But neither Joshua or Moses had an extra-Biblical girlfriend like in "The Ten Commandments" ;)

      Oh, cool. I'll check it out!

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