Tradition! (Please pass the eggs.)

Wait... is that the Easter bunny?

I love Easter. This is my favourite weekend of the year. (You might hear me say that more than once throughout the year, because I'm allowed to have more than one favourite, right?)

Easter is the pinnacle, the high point, of our faith life, and it is also one of those celebrations that invites every sense to get involved. 

We fast and pray on Good Friday, which makes the celebration of the
Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night  - and the eating and drinking and celebrating afterwards -  THAT much more exciting. We take a basket of items to our little country church to be blessed, and each item has meaning in its own right, even though they are just simple things like eggs and bread and cheese that we will be consuming with our Easter brunch. Our church traditions through this weekend involve the strategic use of light and darkness, hunger and fulfillment, the beauty of song and the scent of incense... I love it all so much.


Symbols of new life are everywhere, from the tradition of the Easter bunny (I mean really, what is a better fertility symbol than a rabbit?) and eggs, the budding pussy-willows that adorn the table... I could go on and on and on! Spring is exciting even for those who aren't celebrating any particular faith. Life, newness, rebirth, all that is happy stuff.. 

I'm looking forward to a delicious meal shared by my family (23 of us, today!) - Jim is smoking a turkey on the Big Green Egg, and I'm roasting one with a rosemary-garlic-lemon butter. I'll do some brussels sprouts, and everyone coming is going to bring a food item, too. It is going to be fabulous.

In the week ahead, I'm going to be using some of the ideas I've saved on my Spring Pinterest board - how to use up turkey and boiled eggs, for example. (Two turkeys for 23 people means we are GOING to have at least a little left over, right? And I have 4 kids, who each decorated a dozen boiled eggs...) 

Thanks for letting me share my excitement with you.  What are your special traditions?