For us, Easter weekend has two components - church and family get togethers. This year will be no different. Our tradition is that we go to church on Thursday night, Friday morning and Sunday and that we get together with Dh's family on Good Friday and with my family on Saturday (often, by Easter Sunday, we are ready for some rest and quiet). This year is no different (at least in terms of family).
Sadly, we weren't able to manage church on Thursday night. Our church doesn't do a Thursday service and we didn't feel like we could take two littles to someone else's church at the risk of a big production, especially from LB. Friday morning we were lucky - the church was PACKED, the service was out of the ordinary enough (we all had to go up and write a sin or something that separates us from God) on a piece of paper and then nail it to the cross and then get communion on the way back to our seat - it was very moving), that LB found it interesting and controlled himself.
We got home from church and had the table ready. We had already decided to do, what is called in our family, "A Grannie Annie Picnic". We have a friend who, when hosting guests for lunch, has always done a picnic - several lovely cheeses, salamis (which we replace with keilbasa since the kids love it), breads, veggies and fresh fruit. People linger and graze, the food is lovely and all the prep work can be done ahead of time. Dh had bread ready to go so our guests arrived to the smell of fresh bread baking.
If I do say so myself, the table looked lovely. My only struggle is the fact that I like to decorate for Easter but I don't decorate until Sunday as I like the house to have the lenten-stripped down feeling until Sunday morning. I did decorate a bit but kept it fairly basic.
I had egg decorating stuff ready and was a bit surprised. I thought everyone decorated eggs at Easter but my s.i.l. doesn't do much crafty/baking stuff with the kids. I always get things out to do, expecting that this will be the year that the girls think it's too babyish but every year, they get right into it and talk about how cool it is. This year was no different. PK dyed with reckless abandon (with my poor s.i.l., who is much more concerned about mess than I am, cringing, particularly at the fact that Pk did it in a new-to-her spring dress, while I, who buy everything second hand and have taught littles for years and know that messes get cleaned up, didn't notice - she kept asking me whether the mess and the dress were bothering me...) and the girls were much more deliberate. We came up with some lovely eggs to display for the rest of the weekend.
One thing that Dh's family and mine have in common is that we are big game players and no gathering would be complete without a rousing game of something. This year, we (the women) played while the men, other than Dh slept (and my wonderful husband tidied the lunch.
When we do Easter eggs, if there are enough, my brothers & husband & I do some, too! Creativity is fun at any age!
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