Category Archives: Easter

04.21.09
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She’d be photogenic if she’d sit still

Trying to get a nice Easter picture, but the baby would have none of it.
Same dresses as last year – I’m glad I asked AngoraKnitter to make them big.
Why does the best pose of the baby have to be the blurry one?
Yes! We have her sitting! And blinking!

I was trying to get a picture of her wearing this jacket. I may have worn it when I was little. I know my younger sisters wore it.


The jacket is filthy, and the baby is doing her best to ignore me. And thwart me.

Nice, clear shot. Smiling baby. Jacket falling off. I quit.

Peter wearing Daddy’s hat. At least he loves to be photographed.

04.16.09
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Easter Sacrifices

“They” say that Lent isn’t about losing weight. I agree.

However, if you are the sort of person who loves to eat just for the love of eating (as I do), and you are guilty of such eating perhaps too often (as I am), and you focus many of your Lenten sacrifices around curtailing such behavior (as I did), then it is likely that you will lose weight during Lent (as I did).

And that is fine.

However, now that Easter is here, such people (like me) may need to be reminded that the Easter feast is not intended to be 50 days of gluttony, either. At some point (like right now), the excessive consumption of chocolate needs to stop. Did I not just spend 40 days learning that I do not need butter to be happy?

A few weeks ago, my pastor suggested that every meal every day is an opportunity for some small sacrifice: skipping sugar in the coffee, for example. This man is full of great ideas. He did not say that we are required to abstain from sacrifices during the Easter Octave (as many people seem to be insisting in this post last year, so don’t even bother leaving comments to such effect in the combox – I won’t listen to you).

Just like during Lent, sacrifices involving food during other times of the year are not about weight loss or weight control. They are ways to remind ourselves that food will not make us happy if our souls are unhappy. They help us exercise detachment of earthly things.

And I, for one, need constant practice in such detachment.

04.12.09
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Alleluia! He is Risen.

Happy Easter!

Random thoughts:

Regular coffee, heavy on the latte, never tasted so good.

Neighbors who gear their annual Easter egg hunt and party around my Mass schedule are wonderful.

Chocolate: the breakfast of champions and hyper kids.

I think I need to get to work on a new blog header. Totally forgot about that.

I’m eating a decadent breakfast. I’m too lazy to do links and recipes now. Maybe later this week. Plenty of Easter to enjoy – 50 days!

Splurged on flowers and bushes to transform a bare part of my yard to beauty (even though my husband has to be convinced that spending money on someone else’s property is worthwhile). Planned to get them in the ground yesterday, but it poured until late afternoon. Can’t wait until tomorrow to get my hands dirty.

I really missed comments and love notes in my email. Happy to leave my hermetic blogging life.

Happy it is Easter. Lent was good. Easter is better.

04.21.07
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Sacramental Saturdays

Last Saturday, my niece, Morgan, made her First Holy Communion. I missed most of the Mass, since little Pete was temporarily demonically possessed. He would be nice and quiet outside the building, but as soon as I went into the chapel, he would begin to wail. He didn’t seem to suffer nearly as much the next day when we went to church.

Here is Jenny before the Mass. She seems so calm, huh?

She, too, had issues that morning. And then I left her in the pew with my parents while I dealt with devil-boy.

This is how she spent the rest of Mass after I left her. I was relieved.

This is Katie snuggling with her Uncle Glenn.

The only person in this photo I know is Morgan who is on the end closest to the camera.

I love these group shots. The kids all look so lovely.

Here are my parents, my sister, Barbara, my brother-in-law, Bill, and Morgan. Even though half the people in the photo are looking at the other camera person, I think it’s a nice shot of them.

I have no photos of my Dad’s Easter Vigil Mass. As luck would have it, I turned on my camera, lined up for a shot as they were beginning the confirmation portion, and tried to zoom in. The camera went dead. I looked at my sister, Beth, and mouthed that my batteries were dead. “Mine, too,” she mouthed back. Oh, well. It freed me to pay attention to the prayers and blessings of the ceremony, I suppose.

I did enjoy this Mass. I was worried – I had forgotten to bring tissue. I’m one of those emotional crybabies. As soon as I saw my Dad’s name in the program, I started to well up. I concentrated on following along in the missal and the program, which was great, since those running the show didn’t seem to know what they were doing. I was so distracted by trying to guess what would happen next that I completely forgot about crying! In defense of my parents’ church, I will say that their church building is under renovation and they were in a rented hall with limited access prior to the Mass. They also don’t have a pastor right now, since the last one died recently (may his soul rest in peace). Their lack of rehearsal showed, but it wasn’t really their fault. It kept me from having mascara running down my face, and that’s all that really matters, right?

Thankfully, the three youngest were left at home. Fritz and Billy weren’t too happy about being there, and did a lot of complaining. Is the attitude thing normal for an 8 – 9 year old boy? It was late, especially since we had only been in the central time zone for about 48 hours. But they’ve managed to stay up to midnight for special events like New Year’s Eve with no trouble. Fritz was so sulky that I told him if he didn’t shape up, he wouldn’t go to Communion, and if he didn’t go to Communion, he had to return to Mass the next morning to try again. I really thought I’d have a few more years before I had to deal with this.

{sigh}

03.04.07
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Easter Bunny – the Legend

First off, let me preface this post with the following:

I don’t care what traditions your family has for various holidays. I mean, I care in that I believe they are important to you, and I may think them interesting, but I don’t feel like imposing my family traditions on your family, and really would resent you doing that to me. Do not take anything in this post to imply that what my family does is what your family should be doing.

When my husband and I were children, we thought that a large, furry animal with long ears filled our Easter baskets with chocolate and marshmallow chicks. Somehow we managed to discover “the truth” and neither of us was psychologically damaged in the process. However, I could not keep a straight face and tell my own little kids this same tale. I was not personally attached to the Easter Bunny, and, in fact, I, as an adult, am a bit frightened at the thought of a large rabbit hopping around…have you seen The Curse of the Were-Rabbit? Scary stuff.

Side notes: the Tooth Fairy does happen to stop by here every so often and generally leaves a whole QUARTER (perhaps we have the cheapest Tooth Fairy in the whole world?). And Saint Nicholas (aka Santa Claus) visits us, not once, but TWICE a year (December 6th AND December 25th). I don’t see that either of these visitors has anything to do with each other (one being wholly secular and the other being a saint), and I don’t think either has any bearing on the Easter Bunny legend.

I do think that the whole Easter Bunny thing is quite a stretch. I’ve read the stories, folks, and I still don’t see what the little rabbit has to do with the Resurrection. I just don’t get it, and I don’t want to get it. I’m truly happy in my ignorance. Blissful, even.

I have never mentioned the Easter Bunny to my kids. I’ve never told them he/she/it was coming. We don’t go to the mall where he/she/it sits and has children tell him/her/it I don’t know what…whether they prefer the yellow chicks or the pink bunnies? Nonetheless, my cloistered, sheltered, unsocialized, homeschooled children know all about the Easter Bunny.

Tonight at dinner, they were talking about this creature. I ignored them, as I do whenever they discuss kid stuff. At one point, Billy asked me if I had ever seen the Easter Bunny, and I said that I had not. Katie tried to ask me another question, but I told her I knew nothing about the Easter Bunny. Finally, though, Fritz said that he knew who the Easter Bunny was – mom and dad.

“Aren’t you guys the ones who hide the eggs?” he demanded.

“Of course we are,” I replied. “I never told you that the Easter Bunny did.”

“And aren’t you the ones who put candy in our baskets?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then you’re the Easter Bunny!”

“I am definitely not the Easter Bunny.”

And that was that. There were no shocked faces, no tears, and no more questions. They returned to their discussion about what the Easter Bunny looks like and how he/she/it occupies his/her/its time. Katie continues to hop around pretending to be a large furry animal and wondering how to make rabbit noises. And I continue to marvel at where these kids have gotten such a wealth of knowledge.

And I think I hear the death knoll for both the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus. I don’t care too much about the tooth thief. But that other guy…he’s a big deal. I think next autumn, Fritz and I will need to have a private chat about public speculations.