Despite all that’s going on in the world, Easter is just around the corner. Family celebrations might be digital this year. In an effort to be as “normal” as possible, I’ll be decorating as I always do.
I am nuts about holidays. Ask anybody. From October through April, my house is decorated for one holiday or another without interruption. Only the Fourth of July pops up in between the “off” months of May through September. I’m trying to weed out my holiday decorations; really I am. But it’s always fun to have something new and then, there’s always some spot that could use a decoration. Or two. Or ten.
Mind you, this is not just about shopping which is, of necessity, on-line this time around. When I took up housekeeping oh so many years ago, there weren’t many decorations for sale except at Christmas. I made my own. I’m not sure where this need to celebrate comes from. My mom only decorated in December. In fact, we didn’t practice many holiday traditions most families did. One example—I never carved a jack-o-lantern until I met my husband.
Do you have some weird and eccentric family tradition surrounding a holiday? I mean, something no one has ever done that you know of? Here goes mine.
My mother never colored an egg in her life, as far as I know. We did not have egg hunts on Easter morning—ever. This is not to say Easter wasn’t splendid. Every year without fail the Easter Bunny left me a plush stuffed animal and See’s candy—lots of it. Decorated chocolate eggs. Hollow chocolate bunnies. Small foil-wrapped chocolate eggs. Yum. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. One excellent fact, See’s candy tastes as wonderful now as it did then.
And how did the Easter Bunny leave these lovelies? That is my weird family tradition. The night before Easter, we would shred the newspaper into long strips and pile the strips in a cardboard box. We’d fluff them up really nice to make a nest so the Easter Bunny would have a place to deposit his treasures. On Easter morning, we’d hurry to the box—always left by the back-porch door—much like a child rushes to the tree on Christmas morning. I have never managed to find another human being who practiced this tradition. No one in my extended family. No friend or acquaintance I’ve ever quizzed. This appears to be some invention of my mom’s. I never realized how unique our tradition was until after she passed away so it will remain a mystery until we meet up in the great hereafter. Somehow, the source of her Easter celebration wouldn’t seem to be our most important topic of conversation, but who knows?
While doing some research on the history of the Easter Bunny or the Easter Hare as he was originally titled, I came across a bit of odd information. Legend has it, only good children received gifts of colored eggs in times gone by. Further, children made nests in their caps and bonnets where the Bunny could leave his eggs. This bears some similarity to my family tradition. In my imagination, my mom must have recreated some historical custom. Naw. She just made that up.
Did I pass along my childhood practice to my own children? Nope. The Easter Bunny hid colored eggs and left baskets filled with candy, toys and stuffed animals in our backyard.
I would love to hear other bizarre family traditions. Surely, I’m not the only one. I hope.