Easter Memories and Traditions

It's Good Friday and as I revealed in my last post -- growing up in a church going family -- this day, along with the entire Easter weekend was/is pretty special.

So, today I'm going to reminisce about some of the Easter traditions I remember.

I remember Easter church services and the awesome programs/plays they had.  Some of them were totally and downright amazing.  The story of Easter is really awesome and amazing itself.  He's ALIVE!

It is the reason for the holiday.

My Mom would start weeks in advance shopping for the perfect Easter dress and hat for me to wear to church.  As I got older this was exciting because she would let me pick out a new dress and even then I LOVED.LOVED getting all dressed up!

Weeks in advance my Mother would also start making these string Easter eggs.  Click here to see what I'm talking about.  I'm not sure why I remember this but I do remember helping her and thinking that it was a neat craft. 

She also used to do other Easter crafts with us such as hand blowing eggs then decorating them -- and then of course there was the dying of eggs.

Egg hunts? They were a big deal at our house.  My brother is 5-years older than me but even he would get into it.

My parents never hid the hard boiled eggs.  Instead it was the plastic ones and they had candy and prizes inside.

When I got to be a teenager and we moved to Arkansas that's when it got REAL good.  My Aunt and Uncle would put money in them and me and my cousins would almost fight over them.  The golden egg would have $100 in it!

 I'm not sure if the above picture is Easter or Mother's day(since my Mom has a flower on), but you get the idea.  I don't have any other Easter pictures on this computer so you can enjoy this for now. 

Easter baskets were the 'real deal' in our house too.  I sort of saw it as a mini-Christmas which is terrible.  I used to get up early and just stare at my basket looking at all the goodies that were in there until everyone else got up and we could open them.

My Mom would buy us real stuff for our baskets instead of just candy.  I was a baby doll freak back in the day and I remember getting clothes and all sorts of goodies for them in my basket. 

As I got older it was magazines, makeup and other fun stuff.  I remember when I was too old for an Easter basket.  I think it might have been when I came home from college.  I was sad! HA!

Another Easter memory, which I barely remember, is that my Grandmother(who just passed), would have a nest of grass and eggs outside the door on Easter morning when she came to visit and would tell us the Easter bunny left it for us.

Lasty, I don't remember any certain foods that we had every single Easter except ambrosia salad.  Is that just a Southern thing? I mentioned it to Brad the other night and he laughed and said it sounded gross.

So, now on to make my own traditions and continue the ones I knew as a child.

What do you remember most about Easter as a kid?

Happy Easter everyone!