I have two Easter traditions.
We always had leg of lamb at my house at Easter because my Mom was Greek.
After my mom died, we would still do Christmas and Thanksgiving with my dad at his place, but my dad always came to visit me for Easter. So the first Easter without my mom, I asked my dad what he wanted for Easter dinner, thinking that he might want turkey like we always had a Thanksgiving and Christmas, instead of lamb.
Me: “Dad, what would you like me to make for Easter dinner?”
Dad: “Spaghetti & meatballs!”
Me: “We can’t have spaghetti & meatballs for Easter!”
Dad: “Okay, then meatloaf.”
Me: “Spaghetti & meatballs it is!”
And so a new tradition was born. So every year for Easter I would make my dad spaghetti & meatballs, and my best friend would join us for the day and we would eat spaghetti and play cards around the table for hours. After 10 years, I lost my dad, too, but the tradition of spaghetti and cards ontinued on. (Until my best friend got married years later.)
Still, I keep up the spaghetti & meatballs tradition. I made it last night, but won’t eat it until early afternoon Easter dinner. Obviously!
Our holiday meals were always at 1 or 2 in the afternoon.
My other Easter tradition is to listen to this story from David Sedaris. I love it so much.
Any traditions at your houses?
cope
Having just moved across the country to be near my brothers, sisters and their families, our holiday traditions slate has been wiped clean and we will just slide into their existing customs and maybe add touches of our own.
Today, both my brothers are coming over to watch Liverpool/Arsenal on my new TV and later, we will all get together at one of my sister’s for Snake River Valley ham, scalloped potatoes and such. We are contributing a fresh green bean casserole and banana pudding made with homemade vanilla wafers.
The day started with five or six deer wandering up the arroyo behind our house. That’s as good an indication of Spring as I can think of.
WaterGirl
@cope: Homemade vanilla wafers? Say more!
oldster
Nursing a sore back from digging about 20 feet of ditch yesterday for a French drain. The front yard gets too soggy for too long, and it makes me nervous about the foundations. So, I called in a guy who looked it over and said he figured it would be about $8k-10k. For that, I can live with some soreness.
Just another 60 feet or so, clean it out and square it up, then the perforated pipe and crushed rock. Should be done by August at this rate.
Otherwise, the wife and I ate a bag of malted robins eggs yesterday. That’s an Easter tradition.
Happy holidays to all!
Josie
When my three boys were young, we of course did the annual rite of dying Easter eggs for the bunny to hide. We lived on 1/2 acre, so the hiding and finding was rather involved. As they aged we left that tradition behind until one year, the college aged one decided to revive it. He and his friends gleefully drank beer and hid eggs late that Saturday night and then rousted the two younger teenagers out early the next morning, dragging them outside to search. I still have pictures of two half awake, lanky teenagers carrying little Easter baskets and staggering around looking for their Easter eggs. It was wonderful.
Betty Cracker
The first time I heard that Sedaris bit, I was driving and had to pull over because I was laughing so hard.
Immanentize
I admit I always thought lamb on Easter was a bit weird. You leave church praising and praying about the “lamb of god” then off you go home to consume him.
Then again, I guest it fits in with the transfiguration ritual….
Percysowner
Love Dave Sedaris. When Christmas rolls around 6 to 8 Black Men and Santaland are required, although both are hilarious at any time.
oldgold
@oldster: Plant a weeping willow, but not too close to the house.
UncleEbeneezer
Used to watch Sound of Music at Easter but that’s really the only “tradition” my family ever practiced aside from Easter egg hunts and Easter baskets. Only when we visited my Italian/Catholic Grandparents would I even remember that the holiday had a religious origin too.
As for today, we are going to Huntington Gardens before the crowds get in, to see if my new nose can smell the flowers better. Then we plan to make eggs Benedict for brunch and maybe get a deep-dish pizza for dinner. We’ve been hankering one for awhile but many of the best places in our area are 20-30 minutes drive away.
lowtechcyclist
We order a ham from Harrington’s, and my wife makes goat cheese scalloped potatoes to go with. Probably just steam some broccoli too, to have something green in there.
Since the kiddo is nearly 16, hiding Easter eggs is long gone, but we still make him up an Easter basket filled with goodies. (It’s Easter, there must be chocolate bunnies!) Also since he’s 16, he was on TikTok in the middle of the night and is sound asleep right now. I’m gonna go now and give him a first nudge.
delphinium
@cope: Ham, scalloped potatoes, and fresh green bean casserole was our typical dinner too. We would also decorate eggs either the day before or the day of Easter as well.
mrmoshpotato
Easter is usually ham with homemade bechamel sauce. Pretty sure potatoes and some veggie will be made. Oh, and crescent rolls.
lowtechcyclist
@Immanentize:
Jesus: “My flesh is real food; my blood is real drink.” (John 6:55)
The Gospel of John is weird.
“It’s good to eat a friend, dear friends.” – Pastor Rod Flash (on Firesign Theatre’s Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers)
Another Scott
OpenThread?
OhPlease OhPlease OhPlease… It’s been a week and a half since the last one!
(via 7veritas4)
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
I thought that was Hannibal Lector.
Baud
@Another Scott:
Who knows? It could also be another fundraising scam.
eclare
OMG that David Sedaris bit is hilarious! The French really believe a bell brings Easter candy?
bjacques
Watching the David Lynch’s “Rabbits” segments from “Inland Empire”?
JaneE
We usually had ham, with candied yams. After my mom took a cake decorating class when I was 7 or 8, the table setting included sugar egg dioramas with lots of icing frills on the outside and icing versions of chicks, bunnies, and Easter egg baskets inside. I got to help her hollow out the eggs when they came out of the molds.
Eunicecycle
When our kids were young we hewed closely to the Easter basket/Easter egg hunt/church and new outfits traditions. Also ham and cheese potatoes for dinner. Now we will sometimes have the ham dinner but it’s a lot of work for 2 people. Well the dinner isn’t as much work as the cleanup! Oh one fun thing we used to do is make a bunny cake and frost him then add coconut, ears, tail etc. I almost made one for myself this year.
narya
I’ve been thinking about your question, and . . . I really don’t have any holiday traditions, I think. We made big holiday meals when I was a kid, but I haven’t lived near my parents in 40 years or so. I take advantage of any sales related to the food of a holiday, typically after the holiday, but otherwise, meh. The pandemic made me even more of a loner, tbh
ETA: that said, I am enjoying everyone else’s traditions!
zhena gogolia
Just got out of church. Now back to work.
Butch
I, uh, didn’t know it was Easter until someone reminded me this morning.
WaterGirl
@Josie: Great memory!
RaflW
As an immigrant, my mom was a keen observer of Swedish Easter traditions, though religiously we were a UU family, and she had rejected strict Swedish Lutheranism well before my parents met).
Ham was the main event, but we also dyed eggs a few days ahead and had them for breakfast before church (which, depending on where we lived, might feature some gentle variation on the Easter story – or not – as is the variability tradition of UU congregational theology).
I don’t really remember the sides with the ham that much, but I’m betting it was potatisgratäng (not the cheesy American item, but more a scalloped potato dish). As we kids got older, there may have been a leg of lamb a couple of times, which is a bit more traditional but we probably woulda turned our nose at it when little.
pat
My mom would sew new dresses for my sisters and me. Sometimes she would be finishing the hems on the way to church.
As we were wearing them, of course. Oh and always a group photo on the sidewalk outside the house.
MagdaInBlack
@pat: My mother made most of my clothes, and of course a fancy Easter dress for mass. 😊
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
When raising the kids, we always did Orthodox Pascha (which is next week, this year), complete with some grudging and sporadic adherence to the Lenten fast. Always kept a decent fast during Holy Week. I also always managed to slide my ass into confession somewhere between the Great Vespers of Unnailing and the Matins and Lamentations at Christ’s Tomb (both of which are, frankly, deeply moving liturgies, even for the non/dogmatic).
On Pascha itself, I made ALL the meat and dairy dishes in the Eastern Mediterranean arsenal.
After the kids grew up, we generally found ourselves traveling during Holy Week (it tends to be outside the Spring Break cycle). This year, for instance, we’re headed for Cape Town on Thursday. Last year, it was Paris.
eclare
@MagdaInBlack: I always got a new dress for Easter church.
Betsy
Went to see Cecil B.’s “The Ten Commandments” (1956, twelve Oscars) last night on the big screen.
Well. That is quite a movie.
I really had no idea there was a film that could make “Gone With The Wind” look like a high school play.
pat
@MagdaInBlack: </p
@MagdaInBlack:
My mom was a wonderful seamstress. She made some awesome things for me, clothes, bedspreads, quilts. Even when her nerve disease got so bad that she couldn’t use a needle, she was able to make a wonderful quilt using only the sewing machine. I still use it on my (our) bed…..
prostratedragon
Watched Akhnaten earlier (the theme is surprisingly appropriate). The funerary urns for Amenhotep III kept reminding me of the rabbits seen in the Hayward house in Twin Peaks.
That’s a reply to bjacques@18.
Betsy
As far as traditions: Ham, asparagus, scalloped potatoes; and books and puzzles in our Easter baskets, along with goodly helpings of marshmallow eggs and chocolate bunnies.
We’d often go tent camping or on a canoe trip, in which case no ham and casseroles — just camping food.
I’d devour my new paperback of O. Henry or Mark Twain short stories in a musty canvas tent while hepped up on chocolate and jelly beans.
Betsy
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: That’s pretty neat. I like traditions, even (or especially) the half-kept ones.
WaterGirl
@pat: @MagdaInBlack: @eclare:
Easter outfits! I had totally forgotten.
Every spring my mom would take my 2 sisters and I to shop in Oak Park. All 3 of us got Easter dresses, and “spring” coats and new shoes to wear to church. The shoes I remember were the shiny black patent leather ones.
MagdaInBlack
@pat: My mother made my wedding dress. Her most impressive feat, to my mind, was fitting and sewing the canvas pieces for the pop-up ( fold out?) camping trailer my father designed. It was built before I appeared, but I do remember camping in it.
MagdaInBlack
@WaterGirl: Shiny black patent with a little strap across the arch. Yup. I had white ones too, for Easter I think. Altho I dunno, before memorial day rule and all.
I had fancy hats too, it was when we had to cover our heads at mass.
H.E.Wolf
My parents grew up in two separate religious traditions and introduced us to both. As each of us kids turned ~12, we got the chance to fly cross-country solo, to celebrate Passover with one set of grandparents.
Among the preparations was removing all leavened products from the tiny kitchen in their apartment, and putting them up on top of the clothes cupboards in my grandparents’ bedroom.
This year I’m cherishing their memory by eating matzoh crackers all week – crumbs flying everywhere when I break them: tradition! – and remembering the seder from that trip.
James E Powell
Watched a over half of Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth on Amazon Prime yesterday. Watching it used to be an Easter tradition, but I haven’t seen it in years.
I realize tastes in such things vary, but Olivia Hussey is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen on a screen. I feel like she should have been in more major movies & wonder why she is not. Could well be her own decision.
Jesus is a white guy with blue eyes like he’s Finnish. But apart from appearances, his basic message is not like the Jesus that our American fundies imagine. Because I’m too lazy to do it myself, I’d like it if somebody else did a compare/contrast of the various movie Jesus messages. This one, King of Kings, Jesus Christ Superstar, the Mel Gibson one, Greatest Story Ever Told, and other ones I can’t think of right now.
narya
@WaterGirl: @eclare: @MagdaInBlack: @pat: You all are reminding me that my mother typically made new outfits for Christmas and Easter for me and my sister–but, because we were atheists, there was no Wearing of the Outfits to Church. My mom made a fair amount of clothing for us, as did my grandmother, who was an amazing seamstress–she made clothes for our Barbie dolls–who could sew, knit, crochet, embroider, etc. My mom is also a great seamstress, and knit Christmas stockings for all of us (with our names on the top), but I’m the one who does the fancy needlework (embroidery, petit point). My sister knit and maybe crocheted as well–I have a sweater she made that doesn’t fit me but that I cannot bear to part with.
oatler
I’m the shady uncle with the dyed wooden egg.
James E Powell
@Eunicecycle:
We did all that as well. Somewhere in a box at my Ohio sister’s house, there are photos to prove it.
MagdaInBlack
@narya: Now you’ve helped me remember by mother made clothes for my “troll” dolls.
(Remember those little stocky stiff armed dolls with the big shock of bright colored hair?)
Mike in NC
Easter traditions, is it? How about arresting members of the Trump family? That works for me.
pat
Oh the wedding dresses!! And the bridesmaids’ dresses!! How did she do it?
I don’t think it can be connected with Easter, but last night (this morning actually) I had a really vivid but totally weird dream that featured my mother, or at least a being that I “recognized” at the time was my mother.
delphinium
@MagdaInBlack:
Yup, I remember wearing the white shoes and also white gloves.
kalakal
@James E Powell: Jesus was played by Robert Powell in Zefferelli’s film. He was born in Salford, Lancashire so if he used his childhood accent Jesus would have been going ‘ey up every 2nd sentence as he mithered along.
No idea why Olivia Hussey has remained fairly obscure, after Romeo and Juliet* she was world famous
*I love Zefferelli’s Romeo and Juliet
kalakal
It’s not an Easter tradition, the reverse really, but thanks to a long overdue change in the library opening hours starting today I’m going to be a mon-fri person. Can’t remember when I last didn’t work Sundays
WaterGirl
@MagdaInBlack: We did have hats! I had totally forgotten!
WaterGirl
@kalakal: That’s something worth celebrating!
edit: Wow. M-F work and news that you can go outside without being in a bubble after all those cautious years because of the evil stinging beasts.
The Year of Kalakal.
Spanish Moss
Oh man, those meatballs look amazing. Care to share a recipe?
We aren’t really into Easter much, but we have an egg hunt tradition that is still going strong, and now our childrens’ spouses have joined the fun.
My husband and I did not particularly enjoy hiding eggs, so when our children were young we were inspired to split our 4 kids into 2 teams and have them hide eggs for one another. We have a 2-acre wooded lot that we divided in half, one per team. The only rule is that a part of the egg has to be visible without moving anything.
It worked out great. The hunt takes a long time, and it ends up being a cooperative game because the ultimate goal is to find all of the eggs. Every year finding the last egg takes forever because it is in a great hiding place (obviously!) but whoever hid it forgot where it was and thus can’t give hints. Good times.
Bex
@James E Powell: There is a new one, The Chosen, streaming on Peacock and I think Netflix. It will be a 7-season story of the life of Jesus for TV. Season 3 was released in January.
Almost Retired
My wife makes an absolutely delicious carne asada with a citrus marinade every Easter. I don’t think there’s any mention of carne asada in the Gospels (I haven’t cracked open the book for awhile), but it’s a fine Easter tradition. I also like to watch the parts of The Ten Commandments with Anne Baxter – because even though most of the movie is unwatchable, horribly-acted dreck, 1956-era Anne Baxter was unspeakably hot.
James E Powell
@kalakal:
Probably due to my age when I saw it – thirteen – it’s the definitive version for me.
kalakal
@WaterGirl: Heh yep!
Another plus is I’m no longer working till 8:30 pm every Tuesday. Due to our location we get almost nobody after about 5 – 6 so it was pretty much a waste of time
UncleEbeneezer
@Almost Retired: Have you had Cochinita Pibil? It’s a wonderful Yucatecan thing using meat (usually beef or pork) marinated in in the juice from a sour-orange, also found in the Yucatán! It’s SO DELICIOUS!! We had it almost everyday when we were in Merida back in January. Fortunately we have a couple places that do it well back here in Los Angeles.
wmd
I watch Life of Brian every year for Easter.
Follow the gourd!
Splitters!
WaterGirl
@Spanish Moss: My recipe is super simple, just something I made up from trial and error.
Ingredients
1 lb. ground chuck
1/4 cup panko bread crumbs
1/4 cup grated parmesan-romano cheese
ground pepper
(no salt because the grated cheese has a ton of sodium)
enough water so the meat mixture isn’t dry
1 medium-size *sweet yellow onion
26-oz jar of my favorite spicy sauce *Fortuna’s Fra Diavlo sauce
Directions
Mix everything together (except for the sauce!).
Make 6 big meatballs and put them in a 10″ round baking dish – so there is plenty of room between the meatballs.
I dump sauce over each meatball and bake UNCOVERED for maybe 35 minutes at 350.
*1 medium-size sweet yellow onion, chopped, mixed with a bit of olive oil and baked at 350 degrees until they are partially cooked.
**I buy the sauce from Fortuna’s online because the local stores don’t carry it.
With the right really good spicy sauce, it’s as good as anything I’ve had at an Italian restaurant
edit: don’t overcook the meatballs!!!
WaterGirl
@kalakal: Hat trick!
Spanish Moss
@WaterGirl: Thank you! That does sound easy, I am going to give it a try this week.
Almost Retired
@UncleEbeneezer: Sounds wonderful! What are the Yucatan restaurants? I’ve only been to Chichen Itza by USC and it was great.
kalakal
An Easter tradition I like is the university back in the UK had a best decorated egg competition. Most people just scrawled on an egg with a sharpie but about a dozen or so would really go to town. A colleague of mine usually won, she did/does the most amazing ones of historical/fictonal characters eh Napoliegg, Elvis Preslegg, Cleopatregg, Draculegg etc complete with costumes and accessories. This year was Tina Turneregg. Sadly can’t see it in person but the photo looks great
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
Barbecuing a turkey has become a recent tradition. A few years ago I discovered that the grocery store nearest me (a Giant) stocks Nature’s Promise fresh turkeys around Easter. A fresh turkey is hard to find most of the year and even frozen ones aren’t always available. So I started going on Friday or Saturday morning to get a turkey so I could dry brine for at least 24 hrs.
Got a whole bunch of Ethiopian spice (berbere) at a local Ethiopian market near me a few months back and since it’s a mass quantity I figured why not use it as a dry rub. It’s smelling amazing so far. Guessing I have about an hour left on the cook in my Weber kettle grill.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@MagdaInBlack: When we were kids, we didn’t have Easter basket. Instead, we put our fancy Easter hats upside down on the table overnight and the bunny left us goodies. I don’t know what my brother did.
cope
@WaterGirl: You have to cook the meatballs in the sauce as you do, it’s the one true way. We used to have a leg of lamb dinner every Sunday when I was growing up. My stepdad’s parents came over and it was always a big deal. I don’t remember doing anything much different on Easter Sunday but that is subject to the whims of my memory.
My wife used the following recipe just to make the vanilla wafers. She assembled the rest of the banana pudding in a manner of her own design.
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/nancy-fuller/banana-pudding-with-homemade-vanilla-wafers-2590969
mrmoshpotato
@Almost Retired:
Someone forgot about the Book of Tacos.
Cowgirl in the Sandi
When I was little, my father always ordered gardenia corsages for my mom and me to wear to church. Gardenias were her favorite flower. They arrived early Easter morning and I always ran out to the front porch to see if they were there. They smelled soooo good.
Anonymous At Work
Growing up, my father would break his “all healthy food all the time” to devour a chocolate bunny. As a result of that, plus my natural cheapness, I have no Easter Sunday traditions. The DAY AFTER, I raid the discounted Easter candy bin, though, focusing on marshmallow and chocolate bunnies and birds’ eggs. “Post-holiday clearance, the cornerstone of retail.”
WaterGirl
@Spanish Moss: It’s the really good sauce that makes it! Whenever I try to add milk or egg to the meatballs, they always come out tough. So this time I added a bit water for consistency and they were really tender.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: That’s a sweet idea with the easter hats!
WaterGirl
@cope: Thanks for the recipe! I saved it.
WaterGirl
@Cowgirl in the Sandi: All these memories… Yes! I had totally forgotten, but we all got corsages for Easter. One for my mom, and 3 for us girls.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
See’s Easter eggs! Now I order 2 big rocky road ones for my husband cause that’s what he loves, but the chocolate butter eggs are classic and the best. Usually we have leg of lamb, but I broke my wrist on March 20, so just the usual Sunday baked chicken thighs.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Immanentize: my maternal grandmother was from VA and Southern Baptist. I heard plenty about being “washed in the blood of the lamb”.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Betsy: Oh yeah! Rameses: So let it be written, so let it be done.” I love Yul Brenner in that movie.
Odie Hugh Manatee
We’re having spaghetti & meatballs tonight too…lol! Not traditional at all, in fact our tradition is to have whatever we want. We had a ham dinner earlier in the week because it was on sale and we followed that with split pea soup, so we are hammed out here.
Happy Zombie Jesus Day! Many eggs and much chocolate to all.
Frank McCormick
You got something against meatloaf? 😄
I made “Italian Meatloaf” from a recipe I bookmarked ages ago and it was wonderful.
I don’t know if I will make it an Easter tradition, but I definitely will be making it again.
WaterGirl
@Frank McCormick: I’m a big fan of meatloaf, but it doesn’t scream holiday! Not that spaghetti and meatballs screams holiday, but it was way higher on the chart than meatloaf. :-)