My Life and Dreams

Wednesday, April 8, 2020

March 13, 2016- Easter

Easter is early this year, just 2 weeks away. Hopefully, our cousins Tony and Debbie will be coming over then. They have been doing so for the past couple of years.

I remember that it snowed a little on this holiday one time in the early 80s. Mom made a hen and it’s chicks in ceramics. We still have this and most of the other decorations, including 2 bunnies made by Cindy and Jessica’s mother.

We celebrated it at Grandma Next- Door’s house. She liked giving us gifts like bunny banks and stuffed animals, like the Bunny family – Mr. and Mrs., Peter and CT (Cotton Tail). We got the first 2 one year and the other the next. I wish that I still had them.

My brother and I would usually pick candy as the item that we would give up for Lent, the 40 days before Easter. We were pretty good at sticking to this. We were so glad when we could start eating it again.

We did the no meat on Fridays thing then too. I forget when we stopped doing that; maybe 1984. Mom made us meals like noodles with cottage cheese or breaded flounder. We would usually have tuna fish or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch.

My brother and I liked getting the Gertrude Hawk candy. I preferred the dark chocolate. The peanut butter Smidgens were so good. We sometimes got the white chocolate crosses. My favorite jelly beans were the pink and purple ones. Mom liked the Russell Stover Maple Cream eggs.

Our meal was always ham, kielbasa, Farmers Cheese, dyed hard boiled eggs, babka (bread), beets with horseradish, potato salad and coleslaw.

We’d use the Paas egg dye kit most of the time. We dyed eggs with Cindy and Jessica at their grandparent’s house once. Mike reminded me about this. I think that we have a picture of us doing so. It was fun looking for the hidden eggs. I would always try to find more than my brother.

Dad would always go back into the church for extra palms on Palm Sunday. We had some of the palms in our nativity set.

I know that we used to watch the Peanuts special but I can’t really remember it. I should watch it next Easter. There were a couple of other specials too; I think that one was called “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” which is also a song.