Enjoy your Holiday!

Today, my family celebrates Easter.  Happy Holidays to you and your family, whatever your own family tradition... be it Easter, or Passover, or Nowruz, Holi, or another holiday, and whether you celebrate this week, last week, next week, or another week.  I think that one way or another, everyone is celebrating the beginning of spring and the end of the long cold winter, right?

Getting ready for our big family party made me think about family traditions and how they change over the years.  The Easter I prepare for today is different than the Easter I remember when I was a child, or for that matter, different even than the Easters that I prepared for when my children were little.

When I was young, my mother went to some real effort to decorate for the holiday.  I never seem to have the time.  She made some of the most beautiful window decorations, drawing them herself on construction paper.  They were magical to me, I loved to arrange them and tape them up just right.  I also remember her making an "Easter Egg Tree,"  cutting and bringing branches from our Magnolia tree inside so they would bloom, then hanging decorated eggs on them in a big vase in the living room.  The decorations that were so important to my childhood holiday has never seemed that important to my children, especially now that they are older.

When we were young, my sister and I couldn't wait to dye Easter Eggs.  Even as we got older.  My kids?  Not so interested.  Maybe it's because they are boys? And I remember the Easter Bunny hiding the REAL eggs that we had dyed when we were very little... before plastic eggs were invented.  My own boys had great fun finding the plastic eggs because each plastic egg had been filled with either change or chocolate by the Easter Bunny.  And if the eggs didn't all get found right away, it didn't matter as much with the plastic ones.  (Some years, when the Easter Bunny was especially creative about hiding spots, my boys found plastic eggs almost the whole year!)

One of the biggest differences from year to year with any holiday is who we celebrate with.  Years go by, and new people are welcomed into the family, and others pass away or move too far.  The faces around the table change, and thinking of those who aren't with us anymore is a very melancholy thing.  But I guess that's part of the meaning of Easter in the first place... the cycle of the seasons, the cycle of life, and that someday we can all meet again.

As I said before, whatever your tradition - I hope you have a happy!