Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Blog Challenge!

What's an Easter memory from your childhood? How is/will your child's Easter celebration be different or the same?

As I was preparing for 4.0’s first Easter, I couldn’t help but reflect upon my Ghosts of Easters Past.

Spring break never seemed to coincide with the holiday. My first year in law school, I remember thinking I was going to make myself a nice Easter dinner since I was spending it alone (I splurged on lamb!) Unfortunately, I got a little over zealous with the garlic. To boot, I suddenly came down with the flu and started feeling like death not long after I tried to stomach the over-garlicked spread. It was awful and all I wanted was my mommy to make it all better. So when I hosted a potluck Easter the following year, I made ham.

One year in college, a bunch of my sorority sisters who hadn’t made the treks home to celebrate decided to have a potluck at the house. I think I ended up bring dinner rolls. I don’t remember much more about it than that, except that I was glad to have friends to share the day with.

As I was shopping for the final touches for 4.0’d Easter basket (read: candy for me and Fella) I recalled the goodies my brother and I got from the Easter Bunny each year. There were definitely some constants: these little cartons of chocolate eggs, foil wrapped chocolate bunnies and eggs, jellybeans (Jelly Bird Eggs, actually), and maybe a Regal Chocolate Rabbit. Somehow I remember getting spice drops, too, but I could be confusing that with the candy we were traditionally given on Valentine’s Day.

Regardless, I found myself wishing I could pick up the same candies for my guy (who can’t even eat it this year). Now that I think about it, I’m sure I could order most of the above, but that would take a little foresight on my part (got to work on that). And now that I’ve had time to contemplate, I wonder: do I really want the focus of 4.0’s memories to be on candy like his food-troubled mother?! Things that make you go hmmm.

What I’d really like for 4.0 is to have are memories like the one I have of my Easter in Memphis. We shared the holiday with relatives we didn’t get usually get to share any holidays with, including my second cousin five months my junior. I remember we each got Barbie umbrellas and I was SO in love with mine. I kept treating it like a parasol. I mean, we were in the south after all. Oh how I longed to be a southern belle!

Looking back, what resonates with me most now was how special it was to spend the holiday in a different place with different relatives than we were used to spending the holidays with. I want 4.0 to relish the time he spends with his family, especially since so many of my relatives are far-flung . I certainly want him to have a greater appreciation of his extended family than I did when I was younger. Hopefully he’ll take after his father that way.

It does strike me as odd that being a religious holiday, I don’t have much memory of the church part of Easter. I am sure we attended Easter Mass (or at least ¾ of us did), it just left no impression on me. But can a child really get his head around the religious meaning of Easter anyway? I mean, Christmas is easy—we all have birthdays like the little baby Jesus. Getting that. But death and resurrection? Not exactly hitting close to home.

So how will my child’s Easters Yet to Come differ from mine past? Really, I hope not much at all.

2 comments:

  1. Good post! Today during dinner time prayers Alex actually did say "Thank you for giving Jesus his life back"- which I misheard as "giving Jesus his KNIFE back", CF had to translate for me- but, I think it does sink in little by little as they go. :)

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  2. This is very sweet, and I'm proud that I could play a part in helping you get it in writing!

    As an aside, it was GREAT to see you last week and to finally meet 4.0's charming self in person!

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