When I was growing up Easter was my dad's holiday. Christmas was all about my mom - the decorations, the tree, the meal, the gifts and shopping - my mom featured heavily in all of it (at least in my mind) but Easter was all about my dad.
We'd wake up Easter morning to a new basket or some other collection device - one year it was a new cereal bowl, another year it was a new mug, but either way - basket or useful collection vessel, it was, for Easter morning the collection vessel of choice for what was my dad's finest hour...
The Easter Bunny had hopped through the house and hid eggs all over the place - behind mom's china ladies - in the nooks and crannies of the china cabinet, behind books, on door jambs... and then in shoes, coat pockets, the refrigerator - everywhere...
What makes that my father's finest hour was that he'd sit in his chair directing us once we'd exhausted the most obvious eggs and were getting frustrated.
"You're getting warmer... colder... warmer... hotter... colder..." This could go on for what felt like hours, but was probably only fifteen minutes. And he was very fair - with three of us in the house, he had to be, because we really weren't fair to each other.
Eggs in our house weren't the dyed hardboiled variety, my dad is deathly allergic to eggs, so we always had those yummy foil wrapped solid mini eggs... and they complemented the other goodies that the Easter bunny left - a large hollow egg with our names written on them, a solid milk chocolate rabbit - at least until I discovered they even yummier ones with crispy rice in them and insisted that I wanted that one instead.
If we were really lucky, we'd also have a hand made chocolate confection from the local family owned chocolate shop, Clayton's. It was the place we'd walk to on a regular basis at Christmas and Easter just to press our noses to the window to check out the fabulous assortment of poured chocolate that was hand decorated with royal icing and all sorts of fabulous accessories. We dreamed of, but never got, the 5 foot solid bunny that was the centerpiece of the window... but if we were really good, there might be a little duck or other treat.
After our Easter breakfast of chocolate and more chocolate, we were off to church and I'm sure that the Sunday School teachers were glad to see the back end of all of us, since I'm sure we were all on a serious sugar high!
We'd head home for a lunch of chocolate and more chocolate... and then to my grandmother's house for a healthy dinner :)
What did you do for Easter as a child?
Disclaimer: QI wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Hop blogging program, for a gift card worth $25. For more information on how you can participate, click here.
