As I type this, I’m distracted by my green, pink and yellow fingertips. I easily get impatient with those metal dippers that come in a Paas pack, so at Easter, the eggs aren’t the only things that end up dyed.
I spent a sunny Easter morning with friends, and the hostess’s 5-year-old daughter, Aria, and I got some quality time in decorating eggs. It was one of my favorite activities as a kid, so I was happy that my enthusiasm matched Aria’s.
The day also got me to thinking that this is our last Easter without children. Granted, it hasn’t been a particularly important holiday for me and Eric, but I have a feeling it’ll become more central once a little one’s around to delight in the Easter bunny and chocolate eggs. As a colleague wrote to me, “While it may be difficult to imagine on a day like today, every Easter from here on will be brighter, more colorful and even more full of joy (albeit not always as serenely quiet).”
When we have our own family, we’ll get to start traditions or continue the ones we’ve inherited from family. When I was growing up, my mom would hide our baskets around the house. So to get our plastic grass-filled baskets, we’d scour the closets and pantry and even the oven. I loved the search and the reward (Peeps!) in the morning—something I hope to pass along to our tiny one.
Traditions can start later, too. When we lived in Berkeley, a small group of us threw an Easter party, intending to finish with a game of croquet on the lawn. The weather rained out that plan—but not to be deterred, we simply brought the game inside. We smacked the brightly colored balls around household obstacles like garbage cans and table legs to hit improvised wickets—in this case, post-it notes.
That afternoon was so fun that we began a Friday croquet league all through the spring (though we moved it outdoors), and memories of our silly and smack-talking croquet matches remain some of my favorites from our time in California.
With holidays being a blank slate for our soon-to-arrive Peeper, the possibilities are exciting. We get to shape the rituals that Peeper will look back on years from now. The beauty of choosing how to observe a holiday lies in blending treasured family traditions, recently adopted activities and the new practices that will surely pop up once the kiddo joins us.
I wonder—what are your favorite holiday traditions? Which ones do you want to pass to your family, and which ones could you do without?
