EASTER SUNDAY [NEW TRADITIONS]

this past sunday we celebrated the resurrection of jesus christ. this is the most important holy day in the christian faith and one that has always been dear to me — obviously for the significance of historical events as well as the ways i’ve celebrated it in the past, both with my family, with jp’s, and with our little family of three. this year, taking stuff from both our pasts, i was really able to make it our own; jp and i worked together to create a powerdriver-feel to celebrating this high holiday that i’m excited to see continue and evolve in the coming easter sundays.

1. church: having vowed never to miss an easter sunday service after sleeping through it last year –or tending to a wee one, it’s all cloudy– we pulled ourselves out of bed and headed over to nearby church. ramona had on her easter finest and there were so many other families, young and old, gathering to worship and proclaim: christ is risen! he is risen indeed! though we do not have a church of our own that we attend regularly, it felt good to slide into those pews and crack open the hymn book and sing praises on high with the congregation.

2. family brunch: swedish pancakes. my mother has a recipe that she has been making since as long as i can remember. my memories of rolling these paper thin pancakes into tubes after pouring some maple syrup on them is brought back when i see my niece and nephew do it themselves around my parents’ breakfast table — each weekend, when my brother’s children stay w my parents, they get swedish pancakes. so i did my best to make these sweet, light, eggy pancakes in my own kitchen and this attempt was met w success! ramona gobbled down half and refused our offers of adding maple syrup or peanut butter to them. i took that as a compliment since this girl would bathe in those condiments if she could. jp, requiring savory w his sweet, invented his own way to eat the cakes: rolling up ham and cheese inside. and i ate mine simply, with a tad of syrup.

3. easter egg hunt: every year my mother does an egg hunt for the little ones present at her easter lunches. as we got older, this hunt turned quite competitive — so much so she had to give us our own color of egg so we’d leave each other alone. this year, our closest friends came over with their little ones and baskets to “hunt” for the eggs i had “hid” around the yard. with four children under two this just meant convincing them to pick up the brightly colored plastic eggs strewn visibly about the yard and put them in their basket. the twins and little max rocked the house and filled up their baskets. mo? after successfully placing two or three eggs in her basket, that girl just wanted to sit and eat the one stray piece of candy she found. (without wikipedia-ing it, i have no idea where the tradition of easter eggs and hunts came from but i love it).

4. community supper: the thirteen adults sat down to a long table on our back patio with five babes playing musical laps. jp and i roasted lamb and others brought delicious dishes (asparagus, beets, orzo salad, garlic cauliflower, falafel, rolls with honey and salted butter, oh my!) and tasty beers and wines. after a prayer of thanks we feasted.

5. egg boxing: a tradition that jp’s family introduced me to. you take hard boiled eggs and smash them into another that another person is holding. one will break and one will stay intact. you go around to everyone smashing your egg into theirs (or holding your egg while they smash theirs into yours) and the last one with an intact egg is the winner! each time i think i’ve found a maneuver to win, i lose — my egg smashed so badly and pathetically. while the adults were getting into this, the little ones stripped down to their skivvies and started running around the yard in a sugar-induced crazy. a perfect end to a great day.

jp and i are truly blessed with an amazing community of friends here in denver that i have never experienced before in my past. it was an honor to sit down and break bread w them to celebrate the freedom in life and love christ gave to us through his sacrifice.

and now i leave you with some photos taken by my dear friend, lashley rhodes: