Many families have all sorts of traditions that aren’t at all related to holidays. “First tooth comes out” traditions, “You’ve got your Drivers’ License” traditions, “You got a great report card” traditions. We’re always looking for a reason to celebrate, aren’t we.
And some of our most entrenched and precious traditions are built around the faith-based seasons and days in our family. For us, Christmas is loaded with them, and Easter isn’t too far behind. Dying eggs, hiding eggs, and finding eggs. New clothes, new shoes. In girl families, there might be new purses to go with the new shoes, new jewelry to compliment the new clothes, new lipstick, new eye shadow, and, well, that’s what it was like in my family when I was growing up. However, I grew up and had a boy family, which might mean a new shirt.
But I grew up with the traditional complete new outfit for Easter. We got up on Easter morning, looked for the eggs hidden in the living room, ate some chocolate, pretended to eat some reasonable breakfast, put on our new clothes, and went off to church.
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- First Easter, with a hat as large as my head.
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- Almost 3, on the porch of our brand-new house. Hat size dimishing.
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- Almost 4. Hat size still getting smaller. How many Easter baskets does one girl need!
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- Me, JoAnne, and our cousin Bill. The first Easter in our *next* new house.
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- The three of us the next Easter, and please do notice that, this year, I do NOT have to wear ankle socks with my Easter shoes.
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- Two years later (me, Mother, and JoAnne), and I’m wearing my first pair of high heels.
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- It was a joke in the spring, for several years, that we could certainly have our Easter picture taken with the blooming dogwood tree. Not in FRONT of the tree. Oh, please. We would have to stand BEHIND the tree.
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- Or, below the tree.
And, in the next generation:
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- Kevin at two, was enthralled with egg hunting. He would stalk around his granparents’ den, discover a lightly hidden egg, and shout “Aha!!”
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- Jeremy, at four, was in some sort of snit, and was determined to not have any fun looking for hidden Easter eggs. In other words, “You can lead me to that purple egg in the plant, but you CANNOT make me find it!”
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- April and Kevin will need to be in Fort Worth on Easter weekend, so Peter has come to us *this* weekend, for Easter celebrating. Here is his Easter basket, just waiting for interesting things to appear in it.
So, there should be some cookies baked, some eggs decorated, hidden, and found, there will be Worship in the Park on Sunday, and, possibly, at some point, a chocolate bunny will be involved.
This day belongs to the Lord!
Let’s celebrate
and be glad today
Psalm 118:24 (Contemporary English Version)
I’m glad to celebrate and be glad. Today, tomorrow, and all the other days.