Sunday, April 08, 2007
Easter today and in the Past.
- Happy Easter! Besides the Christian meaning and thoughts, what else does Easter mean to me.
Well, guess my thoughts go to seeing my Family and knowing they are all healthy and happy.
Then I end up thinking of Easters gone past. Remembering how I would make Easter Baskets for each of our Children and the fun they had hunting for the hidden Easter eggs I had colored and hid while they were sleeping. I can still hear the giggles they made whenever they spotted another egg. Some were hidden in easy places, but others were where they really had to hunt to find them. I remember one year I picked up the floor standard ashtray and placed one egg under it. Today there are no ashtrays in my home. I put them all away when Walt started having breathing problems. I still have a coffee can that I painted up and added a handle to and it hangs out on a coat hanger size metal standard that pushes into the ground near my side porch for others to use.
Another time one egg was hidden in the bottom of the magazine holder and the magazines hid it completely. One time one of the kids had left their cap hanging on the top knob of the kitchen chair. Ever try to balance an egg in a cap hanging along the side of the chair. Every time one of the kids got too close I worried they would bump the hat and the egg would fall onto the floor and crack. They were hidden behind the couch, and chairs, even under the couch, on the window sill behind the drapes, , oh just about any place I could think of. I remember one time taking the littlest ones glove and hiding one in there. I always made sure the older kids knew the couple of eggs that were almost in plain site were for the little one to find.
One year their father bought each of them a colored baby chicken- blue, pink, green and yellow. Have to admit they did look cute together. He bought them from a friend he worked with. Well, one of them turned out to be a rooster- a mean white rooster. Walt built a fenced in area out back for the chickens when they started getting big and you should have heard the squawks when I said " Leave those chickens outside". They had made big pets of them and when small there was a wooden box to keep them in. Then along came the next winter and one of the chicken feet looked a bit frozen and we had no way to keep the chickens and rooster from freezing outside. To my objections, their dad closed off a small section in a corner of the cellar for them. By now, the redrock hen was trying to peck everyone who came to clean or feed them and that darn rooster would jump at you. It got so the kids didn`t consider them fun pets anymore. The two white legging hens were the only peaceful ones. Finally the kids decided they didn`t want to take care of them and that`s when I suggested giving them away to someone who had chickens and had a warm coop to keep them in. So, ended my using a snow shovel in front of me for protection every time I went into the fenced in area just to keep from being pecked at. Can`t say I missed those darn hens and rooster even a little bit. We had chickens when I was growing up, but they were all peaceful to be around. You never even gave a worry when you would reach into a nest and remove an egg from under a hen. You could walk up to and pet any of the hens or roosters. So, I had never seen chickens you had to protect yourself from just to fill their water and feed dishes.
Then after the kids grew up, I started making Easter Baskets for my Parents.
Remembering how I used to make a lot of Easter candy to give to my Mother and also to one Aunt who used to spend the day at my parents home. After I lost my Dad and my Mother was left alone to spend Holidays with just us kids, that`s when I started making the candy for the Easter Baskets and taking them down to my Mother. My Aunt, who had also lost her husband, used to spend the day with us at my mothers home. She had just one daughter who lived in the other end of our state and didn`t make it out too often. So, my Aunt loved spending time with us.
After I lost my Mother, one of my daughters used to join me in making candy and she would go with me to take candy to my Aunt`s home. I remember a couple times when another cousin who lived near our Aunt told me how good the candy tasted. So, I know our Aunt shared some with her. This cousin had also lost both her parents. I remember one time after my Aunt passed away, when I was visiting this cousin and we were looking out her kitchen window over towards where our Aunt used to live and missing the rock garden. My Uncle had built a flower garden and in it were many pretty stones of all colors, sizes and shapes from their vacations, both here and abroad. My Uncle loved taking you thru his garden, not only showing you all his lovely flowers, but giving you the history of every stone ( many were larger rocks), that was in his garden. He remembered who gave him each stone, probably should be calling them small rocks instead of stones. He also remembered where they found each rock. I remembered one was brought home from somewhere overseas by his Family Doctor.
Well, after my Aunt passed away, her daughter put the house up for sale and the new owners dug out all the flowers and rock garden and planted grass there. As we looked out my cousins window at the grass our thoughts were in how the house and Rock garden had changed since our Aunt and Uncle used to live there and how much we were missing them. That cousin is also gone today and her house was sold, so I never have any reason to go down thru that part of that city where they lived. it was about a twenty minute ride from where I live and about a ten minute ride from where my parents lived.
Another thing that comes to mind is how our parents would buy us a new outfit to wear to Sunday School every Easter when we were small. I also did that for each of our children when they were young.
Then another thing I recall was when I was a freshman in my first year of high School . I saved my baby sitting money to buy myself a new Easter Dress. It was a dark blue taffeta dress with a golden colored belt buckle and a scalloped shaped neckline. I kept it just for Church wearing. Then one day I came home from school to find my younger sister wearing it to Grade school . Boy, did that get my dander up. I told her to take it off and she refused. She said "Mom said I could wear it". So I asked my mother to please make her take it off. I wouldn`t even wear it to High School and here she was wearing it to play on the playground in recess where she could ruin it. Well the younger sister started crying and calling me selfish and my Mother ended up getting mad at me . She was Mom spoiled little baby at the time, even though she was about 10 years old at the time. I started saving more baby sitting money and bought my sister an even prettier dress which made her happy. Hard part was at the time our parents had large medical bills to pay and couldn`t afford an expensive dress for my sister. I did understand how she must have felt seeing me with the pretty dress when she wanted one. But I didn`t feel that gave her the right to wear it without my permission since I had bought it myself. She was used to wearing all my other clothes whenever she wanted to. She was 3 1/2 yrs younger , but back then dresses were worn either just below the knee or even longer, so my dresses just hung lower on her. I couldn`t wear any of her clothes because they were all way too short for me. Those days are long gone and today we can laugh about it.
So, Easter brings back a lot of memories.
I celebrated with an Easter Dinner yesterday at a Daughters home with her son and three of her 4 grandchildren, plus the fellow she is marrying in June along with my youngest son and his girlfriend. I always come home feeling stuffed and she also sends me home with a full plate of food. This year her Easter Basket for me contained a lot of little items- mesh metal pencil holder, mesh metal 3 section paper holder, a Woman`s Day Mag., a bag of Baked Fruit crisps ( apple cinnamon flavored), a bag of Mixed veggie crisps, a pkg of Pinwheels, a three piece pen and pencil set- third one is a smaller pen to carry in my purse, a small case containing 40 small Dish pins, 6 plastic clips, 6 assorted Magnet Buttons, an other small case of office supplies filled with mettalic colored paper clips, plastic colored push pins and two different kinds of colored clips, a set of three stick on backed grabbers to hold things anywhere- on computer, phone,workbenches, just about anywhere, and a Kenny Chestney CD. All this was stacked in a purple and white whicker basket with a white cloth lining. The cloth has over an inch wide crocheted pink and white edging hanging over the sides of the oval shaped basket. Very Pretty. I don`t know how she managed to fit everything in that pretty basket. Once I took it out, I had one heck of a time trying to replace everything to carry the basket home. My son ended up helping me carry everything home. Of course I also had my phone with me and my slippers so I wouldn`t track her floor along with the plate of food to carry.
She used to fill huge baskets with candy and other sweets, but she knows i don`t eat a lot of candy and I used to share it with her Dad after his basket was empty.
As I was finishing this I just received a wonderful surprise. A grand daughter moved to Florida a few months ago, to be near her only brother. For years he had been asking her to move there and she finally gave in. She phoned me to wish me a Happy Easter. I got to talk to both her and her son. Now, that is the kind of surprise I love receiving and it made this Easter even more special. We were real close before she moved and she said she was missing me and had to wish me a Happy Easter before she sat down to eat. Isn`t that a nice thing to hear.
Happy Easter everyone!!! Let us all rejoice, that we are hear to enjoy another Easter Day.
Labels: 2007 and years before., Easter
