Easter is near; religious or not, are you doing stuff for it?

Chanel 14 is airing Jesus movies. I stop and take in a few scenes when in the room. Last night I saw portions of The Robe. Just now, it's King of Kings. That's the full extent of my Easter this year.

This will be my first time celebrating Easter. We will be dying eggs and making homemade chocolate bunnies, then some friends have invited us over for dinner.

I just bought tons of Easter candy today - as long as my daughter is still living in my house, she'll get a Easter basket and since we have her friend staying with us, she'll get one too!! I decorated already for Easter a bit and I am gathering up my recipes for a good Easter Sunday meal.

Church? I don't think so! I've gone to catholic schools and there I went to mass every Sunday - this shall definitely last me a life time

Easter, long before Christianity was invented, was a fertility holiday.

Now, how should one celebrate a fertility holiday?

You looking at me for an answer? eggs, of course.

Preferably made into popovers.

My little boy still believes in the Easter Bunny, so I leave tiny eggs all over the place on Satuday night. For me, the Easter holidays means football today, (Reading v Leeds and Barnsley v West Ham) football tomorrow, (we're playing the Skates in a local derby) premiership football Sunday, and Crystal Palace away on Monday.

I'm just about to make some hot cross buns.

I don't do much with Easter these days. It's just another day on the calendar. As a child it was a torture at times. When home with mother, there were the Easter egg searches, which also included other candy. On Easter morning there was a basket, we then had to go about the apartment looking for everything. Mother didn't keep a list of where she hid things, but the standard was 1 dozen eggs, all painted by her. One year the 3 of us (me, my brother and sister) could not find 1 of the eggs. No idea to this day what happened to it. Mother was sort of upset.

On an earlier occasion, mother miscarried on Easter Sunday. She was well along in the pregnancy and everybody was looking forward to the early July birth. It was after that, that she started to go a little overboard in Easter, Halloween and Christmas celebrations, I suppose it was her way of coping (as was shipping me off every so often, as by being the youngest I was a reminder to her).

When with my aunt and uncle, it was strictly Passover, no Easter with them. I would get mad, because my brother and sister were still at home and they were getting to celebrate Easter. They both were charitable though, and would save a chocolate egg and some jelly beans for when I was back.

There was also the Passover candy which included the Barton's candy bag and Haggadah (at one point I had about a dozen of those booklets). No Easter went by without my grandmother getting all of us this.

In Vermont there were several children and we would go to Irene and Jerome's place and they would have us do various Easter things, including waiting for the Easter bunny (who looked like Dave, Sheila and Carol's dad). The Easter bunny gave us each some tasty treats, and then we would head in for Easter dinner, with the Easter bunny still in his outfit. Irene prepared the best meals. Irene the younger, would wail about how fat the food would make her and then Dave the elder (the bunny rabbit) would place extra ham on her plate.

I liked Easter morning services, the music, the flowers. Then there was the year where someone saw fit to force a sunrise service and to add to it, have the church youth group put it together. At 6 in the morning we were at the barn property (it was a former riding stable property which the church received from a member who died, with the stipulation that they would build the new church building, which they were planning on, there within 10 years or else sell the property). It was kind of strange and kind of nice all at the same time. All I remember about that last barn service was a trumpet, a prayer and a Christmas hymn.

Easter does remind me of violin class from when I was a child and the song our violin teacher taught us to sing. Eggbert The Easter Egg, made popular to some by Rosemary and Betty Clooney

That sounds like a converted Christmas song for Easter

I remember that my nephew once found the Easter basket of the neighbor kid in their garden and wouldn't give it up. He insisted that the "Easter bunny" brought it to him. That was quite an excitement with lots of tears on both sides.

I've started going to a progressive Christian church this year but celebrating Easter in the traditional Christian manner is too much for me to embrace. We'll do a "spring renewal" type of thing by working together in the garden after having a brunch of eggs, asparagus, smoked salmon, herbed potatoes and mimosas. I'll make an Easter basket for the girls and then make them take all the candy back to school with them. I don't want it in the house after Sunday.

God Friday is called Long Friday in Scandinavia and I always found it soooo loooong. When I grew up there was only funeral music in the radio, no cinemas, no restaurants, no theatres. And it was always icy cold and bad weather.
Once I remember we pulled down the curtains so we could play cards without the people walking by could see us.
We decorate with coloured feathers for some reason.
http://nara.allehanda.se/nyhetsbilder/2010_03/m2010-03-26065340_01117.jpg
Easter Saturday we children dressed up as witches and begged for eggs. Often there were large bonfires. We painted eggs, we had games with eggs and of course good food to eat. Easter Sunday was the day for the big lunch and Easter Monday - also a holiday for the left overs.
It was also days for relatives to come and visit.
As the stores were closed Thursday, Friday, Sunday and Monday there was a lot of shopping and planning to do.

What does Easter traditions have to do with if you are religious or not?
Are non religious not supposed to have traditions or what do you mean?

On Sunday morning my daughter Hermione will trek over from Cambridge
and join Rhys and me for Mass at St. Pat's. There'll be services in
the upper church, the lower church and the parish hall and they'll all
be mobbed. I think they bus half of these people in. The church will
be awash in lilies, and the kiddies will all be dressed to the nines
by their parents.

After church we'll head back to my place. Hermione's husband Fred
and my son Nigel will join us for lunch. The Lovely Bride will be
making chicken chow mein. After lunch the Bride will distribute
"Easter baskets". My kids may all be in their twenties, but you're
never to old for Easter baskets. They are colorful gift bags these
days, but still loaded with candy. As time has gone on, the baskets
have gotten smaller, but the candy has improved in quality. Except
for the Peeps. It isn't Easter if Hermione doesn't have Peeps.

Then we'll start preparing dinner. It'll be roast turkey. Yeah, I
know, wrong holiday, but we love the Bride's roast turkey. Yours
truly does the carving. I hope to maintain my string of finishing
with the same number of fingers I started with. My wife's sister Lisa
and her husband Bill will join us for supper.

The big topic of conversation is bound to be Hermione's commencement
next month. The Perpetual Student will finally be out of school with
her hard-won PhD. Rhys and I will also discuss fantasy baseball
strategy.

It'll be a fun day.

It sounds like a fantastic day, George.


Enjoy!!!

You too!

The other day, The Girl told me the stores would be closed Friday and Sunday. I asked her why, and with a surprised look, told me those were "Good Friday" (weird name) and Easter. These things are really not on my radar. Then, at another site, she had changed her avatar, and when i asked her why, she again gave me a surprised look and said: "For Easter." Religiously speaking, i don't get out much.

I'm going to paint in my shop for the first time. (if it gets warm enough) and work all day on volkswagen cancer.

I've got the smoker set up on the patio in front of the shop.(actually the top of my fraidy hole, but it works nicely nicely) and some salmon to smoke at some point.

Ooooh, my mother used to make those. She snuck some chocolate in them, bit of Hershey bar, I think. Hmmm, easier than the panettone recipe I like best.

Some non religious don't carry on easter traditions that they used to follow. I wanted people to feel welcome to post whether or not they are presently believers, be their posts be about memories or current practices.
"Supposed to"? I'm not supposing anything.

Great post, George.

Peeps...
I'd forgotten about Peeps.

Thank you, Sturgis, for posting your memories. I enjoyed them thoroughly. As an aside (but in the spirit of renewals), muchos kudos to you for how far you've come in your ability to write since your illness.