Remembering Easter and Passover Celebrations

Easter and Passover fall on the same weekend this year. If you celebrate either holiday, what better time to delve deep into your memory bank and find a family story to write?

If you gather with family and friends around a festive table, maybe family stories will be told. You'll listen and laugh or wipe a tear away. It's possible that the stories told could trigger other memories of this time of year. Don't pass up this golden opportunity to write another family story. Jot notes if to help you keep the thought so you can write later. (But not much later) It's doubtful that the people at the table would appreciate your doing it at the moment. 

Some of us won't be with family this weekend, but we certainly have memories of other spring holiday times. Who would you include in your story? How about grandparents, aunts and uncles, parents, cousins, sibling, pets? Any and all could fit into a tale to be told in written form.

Here are a few questions to help trigger some memories:

• Did you celebrate the religious part of Easter or Passover?
• Was Easter only about hiding eggs, getting candy and eating a special meal?
• Who helped with coloring Easter eggs?
• Did you get an Easter basket filled with goodies?
• Did you ever go to an Easter Egg Hunt?
• Did your family eat special foods during Passover or Easter?
• Did you get new clothes at Easter?
• Did you wear a hat to church? The rest of your female family members?
• Where did you have your holiday dinner? Always in the same place, or varied? Which was the one you liked best?
• Was chocolate a part of your Easter?
• Do you remember an Easter of Passover time when the weather was extremely bad?

You don't have to write a full story with beginning, middle and ending. Another nice addition to your family stories book is to write your memories of a special time of the year. Mine are below. 

When I was growing up, my family didn't go to church together. My parents were of different faiths and neither would attend the other's church. My brothers and I went to our mom's church to Sunday School and to church services as we got older. I also went to my dad's church with my aunts and cousins quite often. It didn't confuse me as a child. It was just the way it was. But as I got older, I longed for my whole family to be at a church service together. 

Even with that situation, Easter was a special day in our home. We started the day by searching for eggs the Easter Bunny had hidden. We kids had colored the eggs with the special dye sold in every grocery store, dime store and drug store. I always had a new outfit to wear and new 'Sunday School shoes' as we termed them. And yes, I wore an Easter hat to go with my dress and spring coat. Out came the Kodak camera to capture the day. While we kids were at church, Mom prepared a special dinner which we ate between 12 and 1 p.m. Sometimes, one of my aunts and family joined us. I loved that as the cousins got to go outside and play after dinner.

We had either baked ham or a leg of lamb roast with side dishes to complement. Dessert was usually something lighter than ones we ate in winter. Mother often made a light and fluffy dessert similar to a cheesecake with a graham cracker crust, the filling made with cream cheese, sugar, lemon jello and canned Milnot which you whipped until it stood in stiff peaks. It's a recipe that takes lots of bowls and steps, but ends up a delight. I still make it for my husband now and then as it is one of his favorites, thanks to my mom. 

I continued the traditions of our family with my own children--dyeing eggs, new clothes, and a special dinner. The big difference was that our family all attended church services together to mark the reason for Easter. The wish I had as a child finally came true.