Easter Sunday

It was a beautiful, spring day. The birds were chirping, the sun was shining, and flowers were blooming, and I woke up fresh and relaxed. I woke up to find a big Easter basket full of chocolates, my favorite.

NOT! That's what I wished had happened on Easter. Instead, I get the following:

It was a rainy, yucky day. The weather man on the TV said it was going to storm later today. I didn't hear any birds chirping, and the sun was hiding somewhere behind a stormy cloud. The flowers were just happy getting some rain and didn't even care to bloom for us. I woke up with cats meowing at me to feed them, and a little stressed that I have to get ready for church. No Easter basket filled with chocolates for me! I woke up to find my one and only chocolate, my 3 oz chocolate bunny, waiting for his dimise of me eating his ears so that he can't hear anymore.

As we were getting ready, Samy decided he had enough of his dirty litter box, and picked this moment in time to come and pee on my freshly laundered clothes in the clothes basket. I scrambled to wipe up the floor and hide the laundry basket until I get back from church. Later, I would have to wash all of those clothes AGAIN.

We got to church safe and sound, and even though it wasn't raining, I decided to take in the umbrella. The umbrella we have in the car is HUGE, so taking in the umbrella in church is a major ordeal. But I knew that I would regret it if I didn't.

During the church service, it started to rain. At first, I heard small thunder. Then, while Pastor Gregg was speaking, the thunder got louder. It was kind of comical to hear Pastor Gregg say something, then God punctuated it with loud thunder. When church was over, no one wanted to leave because it was raining hard. So, we hung out for awhile, and when the rain let up a little, Corinne and I headed out with our HUGE umbrella. It was still raining, but with our HUGE umbrella, we got to the car dry.

We got home and I started the ham. I have been dreaming of this ham. It was already cooked, so all I had to do was warm it up, but it took over an hour to warm up. We had this kind of ham at Christmas, so I dreamed of this ham because I knew that it was going to be good. I was suppose to put this brown sugar coating the last 5 minutes of cooking, and the flavor throughout the whole ham was wonderful.

Potato salad goes with ham, in my opinion, but since Corinne is allergic to eggs, I had to think of another way to make potato salad. Instead of putting mayo, I opted for ranch dressing. Even though ranch dressing has eggs (I think), it's not like the amount of what's in mayo, so it doesn't bother Corinne as much. So, with the potatoes, I added ranch dressing, mustard, and somehow I found some sweet pickles in the fridge to throw in. I asked her to taste the potato salad, and beyond the "look" I get (if you know Corinne, you know what I mean), she tasted it and went to town on those potatoes. I think she was relishing the fact that she can eat potato salad again.

As we settled down to eat our Easter dinner, the sun came out, and the weather acted like nothing bad happened earlier today. It was finally Easter weather. If we had kids around, we probably would have had an Easter egg hunt just to make it more Easter-like.

Looking back, when I was little, my dad and I lived in California when I was between the ages of 8 - 11. I had relatives living in the Los Angeles area, so we were always near family. Every year, without fail, my Aunt Irene and Uncle Manuel's family would have a big Easter blow out. The older kids would go to church early (the one and only time of the year we would go to church), and then go to the park and get a table and spot for the family. Us younger kids would go to church a little later with the adults, then we would all head to the park. We would have a big picnic, with bar-b-que, drinks, food, etc.

We would also go with our confetti eggs that we have been saving for weeks. We would start saving egg shells weeks ahead, wash them, and fill them with confetti. It was a family effort. We were so sick and tired of eggs by Easter because we were constantly eating to get more shells for the confetti eggs. But it was well worth the effort. We all got a carton of eggs, and at the right time, we would go on a head hunt, cracking confetti eggs on suspecting adults and unsuspecting kids. We would chase each other around, and chaser would try their best to get the chasee with the egg. My older cousins were sometimes sneaky and would put glitter in some of the eggs and would save them for the adults. Or you may "accidently" get one of the glitter eggs, and for weeks glitter would stick to your scalp. Overall, the confetti eggs was one of the highlights of Easter.

Another highlight was the potato sack races. Every Easter, we would do potato sack races. We would never grow tired of it, no matter how old we were. And we actually got pretty good at it. I remember that at my 5th grade picnic, we had potato sack races, and I was one of few that actually knew how to manuever a potato sack in a race. I didn't win, but got pretty close to it.

When I tell Corinne these stories, she would look at me like she doesn't believe me. As if I never was a child, nor did I actually have a childhood and memories and different customs. Our custom is now go to church and come home and eat a ham dinner. I used to give her a Easter basket, but I stopped when she got older. Maybe I should continue that tradition so that she will carry it down to her kids someday.

I tell you what. My favorite Easter memories are the ones in California with my Aunt Irene and Uncle Manuel's family. They were my favorite. Hopefully, my daughter has a favorite memory of Easter.