Easter....Easter reminds me of many things; the Resurrection, springtime, dogwood tree blooms, china berry trees in bloom, church, Easter corsages, hats in church, flowers in my hair, a special dress and shoes for Easter, gloves, egg hunts, baskets, carrots left for the Easter Bunny, candy, plastic baskets, coconut cake, ham, family and fun.
I remember a few things more clearly. I had this one outfit when I was about four. Green with some color blocks in pink and brown. I hated that outfit! There is a photo of me in it holding a plush bunny or a basket...something Easterish with the haircut I hated on top of it all!
I loved those green coconut nests from Russell Stover, they just tasted like Easter. The only acceptable Peeps were pink bunnies and yellow chicks. It just ruined the day if I got yellow bunnies and pink chicks. I think those were the only two shapes and colors back in the 70's and 80's. There were also humming bird eggs. Hummingbird eggs were about the size and shape of sixlets, but they were jelly beans...tiny baby jelly beans.
Easter grass. It just wasn't Easter without plastic Easter grass. The bunny uses paper grass now because our cat confiscates the basket as soon as my son empties it. The current basket count is 3 or 4 in the open and a few more hiding. The grass is still in them, he uses it for a mattress. We do not touch the Easter grass.
Jelly beans!! I am a slave to jelly beans. I didn't buy any this year because I got sick on gummy bears and some weird store brand Jelly Belly knock off...they weren't bad, they just hit me the wrong way. I'm sure the donut holes didn't help the cause. I digress... I love the pink, purple, white and black jelly beans the most. I'm not too fond of the mix with spearmint as the green jelly bean. Though they do have an interesting pink and white in that set...oh and the purple too. Red jelly beans are always a winner too.
Chocolate bunnies! That's it, the centerpiece of every basket.
The return of white. White was only worn from Easter to Labor Day. Outside of the white season it simply was not worn. This definitely included shoes and purses! It may have just been a southern thing. I had to wear yellow and white nearly every Easter. White shoes were an absolute must on Easter Sunday. I still remember a pair of white low heel Mary Jane shiny man made upper with this one weird tag of black from the sole that rode up in a semi circle on the instep of the right shoe. My Grandma wanted my head on a platter because I picked at it all through service. I was about 10....it really bothered me.
Easter egg hunts at church. We'd each bring a dozen hard boiled eggs to share for the church egg hunt. One egg was wrapped in foil and was the "special" egg. Whomever found the special egg got a prize. We'd hunt and snipe eggs, we'd trick each other, we had a really good time and we got a few eggs. The luckiest snipers got the most. After we found all or most all of the eggs we'd sit down to eat some of them. Almost as a unit we popped out our salt shakers. Most of us had those tiny salt shakers to use when dining on egg. They were about the size of a thimble and were very handy. I think the weirdest thing that happened was at my first egg hunt. I was Easter '76 and I was 6. I sat down with my cousin to share eggs. All of a sudden something hard hit me on the top of the head! I looked up and noticed my head was being used to crack an egg! I had never experienced such a thing. Since then I have cracked a few eggs on heads and sometimes remember to crack one on my own in an odd tribute to that first wacky egg hunt.
My Grandma's hands. I would hold her hand almost all through church and play with her rings. She wore three, an onyx oval with a tiny diamond in the middle. I have that. Her Mother's ring and her wedding band. I remember the way the light caught all the colors in the Mother's ring. I remember how soft her hands felt, how smooth and thin her skin was, how warm they were and her patience as I toyed with the rings. We didn't have Children's Church for major holidays, that's how I ended up associating her hands with Easter and of course Christmas.
I seem to have a lot of memories of food and candy :)
Happy Easter!
No comments:
Post a Comment