Easter

What kind of traditions do you observe for Easter? Church service? Baked ham and deviled eggs? Family? Friends? Drainage ditch? What?

I've written a lot about family traditions on this blog - my never ending quest to craft them, maintain them, force them down my family's collective throat. And sometimes, just sometimes, let them go.

Easter is a great example. Over the years we've done some pretty cool Easter projects. My favorite was the year we (I) made our own baskets and dyed our (my) eggs in pots of vinegar and boiling cabbage, onions, turmeric and beets.

Bela, 2009

There was real grass in those baskets, and daffodils. A Toy Garden  even used one of the images we took as their product photo on their website a few years back.

But this year I left the baskets at home when we traveled to Urbana. I tried (and failed) to do a batch of eggs in natural dye. Oh, Paula, if you're reading this, please toss out the contents of the four mason jars in your fridge. Those are my eggs, soaking still in cabbage juice, instant coffee, and dill and kale. Eeek.

One tradition that has lasted over the years and was started by Chris is adventuring in what Mae likes to call the "calm creek", which, though admittedly calm, is neither a creek nor a stream but a rural drainage ditch. They like to lure crawdads with bacon and catch teeny tiny little drainage ditch fishes with three eyes and a sprouting pair of arms.

So while each year I dream big, sometimes you have to let go of the hand-woven baskets, the beautiful natural dyes, the embroidered balloon eggs, the decadent chocolate cake. Sometimes you have to throw a bunch of Paas dyes at the kids and let them walk around in the muck under a bridge.

Hope you all had a happy Easter!