But it's background info I guess.
Because one of the things I picked up from my years in
To me, they are Holy Days, and so we celebrate them a little differently to most people.
The emphasis since we left church is on people and celebrating rather than gifts and chocolate. We don't have Santa or the Easter Bunny, for example, and though we give presents for Christmas (and plenty of them) we also tell the Christmas Story and have the nativity scene front and centre.
Easter for us is a big deal. We have a candlelit roast lamb dinner on Good Friday, which we celebrate as a modified Passover, and we talk about the children of Israel escaping Egypt and slavery under Pharoah.
We have a Seder plate, piled high with
* hard-boiled eggs (symbolising suffering and new life)
* the roasted lamb shank bone (symbolising the blood sacrifice)
* bitter herbs (horseradish) symbolising the bitterness of slavery
* parsley (symbolising Spring and bringing hope)
* salt water (symbolising the tears cried in slavery)
* haroset (little bricks made of nuts, honey, apple and wine) (symbolising the work of slavery)
* unleavened bread (symbolising how quickly the children of Israel had to leave Egypt)
The kids love dipping into the Seder plate, and trying to remember what each item represents. We bring the crucifixion into it, too, but nothing like as full on as we used to.
We drink lots of wine (Maison for the kids) and we used to have people over too, which made it more fun, but Fabio isn't into dinner guests for some reason so now it's just us.
I make a chocolate tart for dessert, which is so thick and sticky the kids call it Tar Pudding, and then we stagger off and collapse for a few hours.
Sunday is very low-key. We put the eggs by the kids' beds before they wake, and if we remember we have an egg hunt at some point during the day, but it's no big deal.
I miss the days when we had too many people to fit round the table, and ended up using Vegemite jars because we ran out of good glasses, you know? It was so fun, lots of laughter and plenty of help with the dishes too!
But that's part of marriage, isn't it? Things change.
Well, we just had a pile of fish that we didn't quite enjoy and threw lots in the bin coz we bought too much and tomorrow we are on holidays. So I feel bad about that. Plus we had calamari. YUM!! I didn't eat any meat though coz it's the way I was brought up. It's Good Friday after all! The Easter Bunny will come on Sunday and I will steal half the kids chocolate. Easter for us though, in my semi Catholic state, is about family and gratitude. Not because I'm religious but because ... because ... just because. I think it's because I'm kinda at one with the universe. Does that make sense?
ReplyDeleteHappy Easter Toni!!!
Yeah it makes perfect sense! And happy Easter to you all, too.
ReplyDeleteI loved reading about your different rituals and the food and its representative values. Sometimes I feel ritual can be soooo meladramatic (I'm thinking specifically about the Catholic service I attended today) but ritual also can make us feel comfortable, belonging and focused.
ReplyDeleteI loved reading about your different rituals and the food and its representative values. Sometimes I feel ritual can be soooo meladramatic (I'm thinking specifically about the Catholic service I attended today) but ritual also can make us feel comfortable, belonging and focused.
ReplyDeleteI love tradition and big gatherings and I think children do too. We don't have family out here, unfortunately, so most of our gatherings are small. I still harbor the hope that someday I'll marry into a larger family so I'll have that experience.
ReplyDeleteThis was such an interesting post. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about your traditions and may just adopt some of them into our festivities. The kids are learning all about God and the real meaning of the holidays, so the little rituals you mentioned would open the door to conversation even further.
ReplyDeleteGreat post and Happy Easter!
I loved reading about your traditions too. Especially the plate. How special! I really want to establish more traditions in my family. I feel like I can remember so many from when I was a kid but we don't really have any now with our own kids! Maybe I just can't think of any. Have I written this before? It sounds familiar... ;)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, it sounds wonderful xx