Easter Traditions

Our family, like many other families throughout the country, celebrated Easter with several traditions.

The last Easter the entire Sherman Family shared

Growing up in the 1950’s it was imperative that we each had new “Easter Outfits.”  These Church clothes were worn only on Sunday and only for Church through spring and into summer.  When school started the dress would become a school dress for the start of the school year and we would get a new “Church only dress.”  That was the important tradition and it involved Church.

One Easter in the early 1980's (Farrah Fawcett hairdo, anyone??)

The second tradition was THE Easter egg hunt.  The hunt was preceded by the Egg Coloring.  The three children would color the eggs in the most bizarre color combinations we could imagine and each one of us had “our special egg.”  

Now I know every family had Easter Egg Hunts, but our family put a sadistic twist on it!  After hunting the eggs our parents hid for us, we would hide eggs for them!  The egg hunt for the three kids was so complicated that my father actually drew a map so he wouldn’t forget where they were hidden!  This after one of us found an egg during the summer in a planter, under the mulch!

Finding the egg in the lighting fixture

We retaliated by planning their egg’s hiding places for days before the event.  Places we would hide the eggs?  How about in the flour canister in the middle of the flour?   or in the tennis shoe hanging on the clothes line?  or in my mother’s purse?  The best one was the year we removed the the clock workings from the stove, stuffed the egg in and replaced the clock.  We nixed the idea of hiding an egg in the cat’s potty box ~ we felt that was crossing the line ~ like there was a line!

We grew, married, and had children of our own and continued the tradition of THE Egg hunt.

Looking for the elusive last egg . . .

 

 

The year we rented a cabin in the San Bernardino Mountains with my brother’s family is one memory that stands out in my mind.  My sister in law and I had the task of hiding the eggs.  We decided to hid one of the eggs in the toilet tank in the water.  Never in our wildest dreams did it occur to us that the egg we hid in the toilet tank would end up in the bowl with the first flush!  The child that flushed that toilet, and I can’t remember which child it was, was thrilled to think the Easter Bunny had left an egg in the toilet for them!  

. . . and the grandchildren continue the traditon

Our children grew, married and children of their own. We continued the tradition of the egg coloring and egg hunt, but without the bizarre hiding places. We colored eggs with the grandchildren and hid their eggs in semi-obvious places.

After all, they hadn’t been broken into the bizarre traditions of a semi-dysfunctional household!