Happy Easter. We're one month into quarantine, and celebrating a holiday about resurrection and setting ourselves free through God's sacrifice- it feels apt to be indulging in this glorious notion, and the possibility of coming through something traumatic and finding good on the other side.
The secular version of the holiday involves bunnies and candy filled eggs- wonderful in their own right, but I digress.
This morning, the Easter Bunny delivered despite social distancing. It was impressive- a few balloons for the girls, sidewalk chalk, a couple of eggs with some change, and a few books (though R. already apparently had one of them, so the bunny needs to do more homework next year- I think we can forgive him given all the other stuff going on in the world). And there were eggs hidden around the yard- more on that later.
First up was pancakes, which I made using an amended recipe due to lack of milk in our house. I found a few recipes online, and essentially messed around with them over the last few days until I came up with what I made today (I'll include the recipe at the bottom of this blog). The pancakes were delicious, and I am proud to say I pulled off creating an easter basket (complete with frozen blueberry "eggs"), and a bunny with ears (the ears were conjoined, but I was able to perform some quick surgery with a knife and voila!). While I was cooking, I tuned into a church service online, and the girls immediately started asking questions as I struggled to explain Easter. We haven't raised them with an organized religion, though we have occasionally explained some of the theology behind Christianity and Judaism. The other day they got a semi-crash course in Passover, but today, they had questions, like "If God is Jesus's dad, who is God's dad?" I didn't really have an answer besides that people believe there's something bigger out there, God if you will, that created the universe. R. then accurately pointed out that atoms make up everything, and asked if God was comprised of atoms (I responded with God made the atoms, and so if there is a physical manifestation of God, then yes, it would be made up of atoms). It was a bit dizzying.
We all then moved into the living room for the rest of the service, and it was touching to see the musicians (including a friend of ours) singing joyful songs about Jesus rising. It was one of the first times I've been moved to tears by a service in a very long time. There's something about a rising rock beat hitting a crescendo and belting about overcoming that emboldens me to think we as a society can make it through anything. It also helped that along the side of the screen (this was on Facebook Live after all) there were messages of hope and love- reminders of just how good people in this world are.
Jeff and I had a long talk after about perhaps bringing more organized religion into our lives and the kids'. I had left our Catholic church in my early 20's, after listening to a priest spouting off in an extremely homophobic way (my best male friend is gay- I literally walked out midservice), but I feel like religion has come a long way since then, and there are churches now that are all-inclusive and truly embrace the ideas of humanity and kindness, and if we can join a group that celebrates all people, it may be something that we want to add to our lives.
After church, we brought the kids to the back porch, where they were happy to find their Easter Baskets. We also spoke to our parents, as Granddad had arranged for the bunny to hide the eggs in our yard this year, instead of in his and Grammy's house (he and E.B.- Easter Bunny- have a close, long-standing relationship).
With social distancing in mind, Grammy, Granddad and Marian headed over to our house, and the girls got dressed so we could do a formal family photo on the front steps. I arranged my camera phone and the tripod, and the girls came outside decked out in two gorgeous purple dresses that R. had received for Christmas (some kids ask for toys, mine asks for books and ballgowns). They hammed it up for the camera, posing like violet cotton candy swirling around. We managed to pull off one solid family shot as our relatives arrived, and then we all took some socially-distanced photos on the front lawn. I can't help but think how this year's annual album is going to be chock full of these types of pictures.
The girls were on their best egg-hunting behavior, and sprinted all around the backyard finding colorful plastic eggs. One of my prouder moments was when E. fell and dropped some of her eggs, R. immediately stopped racing, bent down to help her sister, and made sure everything was back in the basket before taking off again. Then, when the eggs had all been harvested, the girls sat down to count theirs, and E., realizing her sister had fewer than herself, handed R. enough to make the split even. Parenting win.
Grammy and Granddad also gave the girls their own basket, with some rice crispy treats, and a batch of "Grammy cupcakes" that had been placed into a tupperware the day before just in case of any germs. The Grammy Cupcakes are made from a recipe that Jeff's Grammy passed down, and that Jeff's mom and I spent an entire day a few years ago working on to try to get "just right". We eventually discovered two things: 1. You must grease the mini muffin tins with butter and 2. You have to use Presto Flour, a specific brand that was very popular in the 1950's, and can now be ordered from a Cajun shop in New Orleans that I discovered online (Grammy got several boxes of it for Christmas a few years ago courtesy of this find).
Jeff gave Grammy and Granddad and Marian Easter gifts of their own as well- bags with masks we had held onto, so that when they have to go out, they are protected. It's not quite chocolate bunnies or Peeps, but it's what we had.
Nana and Popum also came over, stood at the fence to chat with the girls, and left with gifts
After everyone had left and the girls had tired of playing soccer in their dresses and nice shoes (considering I played soccer in my wedding dress with my husband during our photo session at our wedding, I have a tough time telling them no to that), we all came inside and I started working on dinner. I made tomato sauce from scratch, because we were both out of bottled gravy, and it made it feel a bit more like a holiday to have the house smelling of sautéed onion and garlic and bubbling tomatoes, fresh basil, and oregano.
The highlight of the day was leaving the house for a little bit. Our friend Cat had organized a caravan to cruise by the house of birthday girls E&E. One of the girls is in our Girl Scout troop, and her twin sister attends a special school for children with disabilities, but we've all met her at various school events, and were thrilled to be able to bring some birthday cheer. That said- the beaming on the kids in the caravan was palpable when we all lined up the cars. The girls were really good about staying in the vehicles, but they were all hanging out of the windows, popping through sun roofs, and waving hello and shouting to each other while we lined up. Then, it was on to E&E's house, where both girls were in the front yard, waving back. Celebrating your birthday in quarantine is hard (I know), but knowing how much your friends love you and seeing them all come by with signs and songs is special.
When we got home, we found a letter from some neighbors a few doors down. We had said hi to them yesterday when they were out trying to see the Easter Bunny drive by on the firetruck, but otherwise haven't really met them. But their daughter had written a letter asking about a playdate when the quarantine ends, telling us her and her brother's ages, and stating pandas are her favorite animal. The girls are very excited to meet her in person, but for now, will settle for writing notes back to her, and hopefully having a new pen pal and socially-distant friend.
By the time we all sat down to dinner, I'd arranged it as much like a typical holiday meal as I could. In my family, this means fruit cups to start off for the kids, and a piece of chocolate for when they finished. Fortunately, some of the eggs from the Easter Bunny had Hershey's Kisses in them, which was a big help for the chocolate part. For the fruit cup, I was able to grab some out of the kids' snack basket. For as long as I can remember, Easter has involved a beautifully decorated table at either my mom's or one of her relative's, with a linen tablecloth, candles, fresh flowers, and fine china and glass. Even on the children's table, there were crystal (or crystal-like) bowls for the mixed fruit (it may have come out of a big can that said Dole on the side, but it looked like a million dollars in those bowls).
I didn't pull out the fancy linens, though we did eat off the china we were given by Jeff's Grammy for our wedding. She passed away a few months before we got engaged, but was alive when he bouth me the ring, and had misunderstood that for us being already engaged. Since she wasn't 100% there in her last couple of months, no one corrected her. She pulled Jeff's parents aside one day, and told them that she wanted to pack up her English china with the little yellow roses for us for our wedding, and they did. This was a woman who at 90 had ordered a new (complete) set of china, so there was plenty to go around the family, and I love that she thought of us for this set. Fast forward several years, and I read a book about happiness, and how the author started to use her good china daily, because it always made her smile. I began doing the same with our Grammy China, and every time I see those roses, I'm reminded of the sweet woman who treated me like a granddaughter for over a decade.
Between the china and the fruit cups and of course, having our family over, even as an acceptable social-distancing distance, it did have the feel of a holiday. Surrounding ourselves with love is always the important ingredient in the holidays. Well, that, and a little bit of chocolate.
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