From Our Home: Happy Easter!
Easter has been a joyful one so far this year, in spite of the coronavirus. There's a certain specialness to Easter, a springtime festivity and a sacred feast day. I remember it having a certain magic to it, if you will, when I was a child; I would wake up thinking "It's Easter!" and wait for the sound of Handel's Hallelujah chorus to tell us we could get up now. I would immediately be able to see one chocolate egg hidden in plain sight from my view in bed. We would excitedly dart around the house hunting our quota, including one solid chocolate bunny hidden somewhere, and then depending on when we went to church, feast on a grand breakfast.
New traditions as a mom now are exciting too, and they kind of renew the special excitement of Easter from childhood. My son is too young for egg hunts, but I was eager to do what we could with him: dyed eggs, his own basket for the basket blessing at church, lots of baking, and a magnificent spread of sausage, cheese, Pascha bread, and chocolate from our basket to feast on all day. We missed our usual gatherings of friends from our parish and family back home, but we made the most of it.
We did get to go to church; our family led the singing for the livestream at church, so we were alone in an empty church aside from the priest. This was a wonderful gift that I did not take for granted, knowing that so many people wished they could have gone to church for Pascha.
It was not all joyful. The community was missed, the empty church felt lonely, and it was hard work: four days in a row from Holy Thursday to today, long services, an early morning this morning. My husband sang, and I tried to sing too, but I spent most of the time chasing my almost-1-year-old around. I had to realize once again that motherhood brings a whole new, different kind of distraction from prayer. But it was primarily joyful, and I don't think I would have celebrated Holy Week and Pascha as fully without it. And it was an honour to represent my parish on our greatest feast of the year.
(Yes, those are Eucharistic breads in our sloppy basket. They have been in the freezer since our wedding! And no, my 1 year old did not eat all that chocolate by himself!)
Back at home, my son has been enjoying the fun foods and festive atmosphere. He loved dyeing eggs, playing with them for an Easter photoshoot, and then eating them! (Just the whites of course. They were hard-boiled.)
Oh, and here's a fun tip from my inventive husband: Ovaltine in a double chocolate chip cookie recipe instead of cocoa makes it taste like those old-fashioned robin's eggs Easter treats, which are immediately reminiscent of Easter dinner at my grandparents'.
Have a blessed Paschal season! And if it didn't go according to how you envisioned it, there are 50 days of Easter in our liturgical calendar, and you are stuck home anyway, so it's not too late!
New traditions as a mom now are exciting too, and they kind of renew the special excitement of Easter from childhood. My son is too young for egg hunts, but I was eager to do what we could with him: dyed eggs, his own basket for the basket blessing at church, lots of baking, and a magnificent spread of sausage, cheese, Pascha bread, and chocolate from our basket to feast on all day. We missed our usual gatherings of friends from our parish and family back home, but we made the most of it.
It was not all joyful. The community was missed, the empty church felt lonely, and it was hard work: four days in a row from Holy Thursday to today, long services, an early morning this morning. My husband sang, and I tried to sing too, but I spent most of the time chasing my almost-1-year-old around. I had to realize once again that motherhood brings a whole new, different kind of distraction from prayer. But it was primarily joyful, and I don't think I would have celebrated Holy Week and Pascha as fully without it. And it was an honour to represent my parish on our greatest feast of the year.
(Yes, those are Eucharistic breads in our sloppy basket. They have been in the freezer since our wedding! And no, my 1 year old did not eat all that chocolate by himself!)
Back at home, my son has been enjoying the fun foods and festive atmosphere. He loved dyeing eggs, playing with them for an Easter photoshoot, and then eating them! (Just the whites of course. They were hard-boiled.)
Oh, and here's a fun tip from my inventive husband: Ovaltine in a double chocolate chip cookie recipe instead of cocoa makes it taste like those old-fashioned robin's eggs Easter treats, which are immediately reminiscent of Easter dinner at my grandparents'.
Have a blessed Paschal season! And if it didn't go according to how you envisioned it, there are 50 days of Easter in our liturgical calendar, and you are stuck home anyway, so it's not too late!
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