Easter 2021: The Lowest of Keys

Over the weekend, I spent some time looking through old blog posts, reminiscing about Easters past, and whoa. Last Easter was the most high-key celebration we have EVER had for that holiday! Like, we did more for Easter last year than we did when the kids were toddlers! We dyed eggs and painted eggs and sewed eggs out of felt, I modeled an egg out of plaster of Paris, Matt built an entire MACHINE for egg decorating, I... BAKED AN ENTIRE LITERAL CAKE.

I get it, man. This time last year, I was absolutely beside myself with anxiety, and Easter was a darn good distraction. The kids were reeling from the cancellation of all their fun extracurriculars and every last out-of-the-house activity on their schedules, and, again, Easter was a darn good distraction.

This year, I'm still absolutely beside myself with anxiety, but that's old news by now. The kids, even though all their fun extracurriculars and most of their out-of-the-house activities are still cancelled, have a new normal. Syd's life is full of public school busywork, and Will's got plenty of her own, more meaningful (ahem) academic deadlines. 

So what did we need in this little break before nine pages of biology worksheets that won't be on the test, AP exam prep, and assisting with nonsense biology worksheets and exam prep and my own work?

We needed nothing, mostly, other than to hang out on the couch together. Or the back deck, in the shade. Or the driveway, in the sunshine.

To be honest, I might have gone overboard a bit on the traditional Easter Basket Clue Hunt. It took the kids upwards of 40 minutes to solve all the clues, oops, and one of them, I'm pretty sure, was long ready to say the hell with it and let the baskets be uncovered in their own time. But how can one prove one's worth for an entire basket of candy and small presents if one doesn't decipher and then follow clues that lead one from the refrigerator to the trampoline to your own bed to the bird feeder to the aerial silks rig to the car to the tree house to the bookshelves? What is Easter without computer research to find a specific Dewey Decimal number, or half an hour rifling through the car to find an Easter egg hidden in a secret compartment that you 100% did not know even existed in that car?

Sunglasses compartment? How is that even a real thing?

In my family, gummy bunnies and chocolate eggs and fuzzy socks and ponytail holders and geography coloring books are only for the wisest, the bravest, and the most daring.

Also, these Peeps bunnies that I hand-sewed from felt:

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You would do anything to earn those bunnies, and you would be right to do so.

I was not able to talk everyone in the family into coming together to make an Easter-themed meal. I had big dreams of everyone choosing some tacky, Easter-themed menu item--bread shaped like a bunny with a hole cut out of its tummy for dip, perhaps, or Jello poured into plastic Easter eggs to set--but nobody else had the same enthusiasm, so we got by with our old standards of canned cinnamon rolls shaped to have bunny ears, and, for the adults, Baileys drunk out of hollow chocolate rabbits.

I also wasn't able to martial the kids to dye Easter eggs with me, even though they had expressed enthusiasm for the project long enough for Matt to get the eggs hard-boiled. Come to think of it, I'm actually pretty sure that was just a ruse to get enough hard-boiled eggs into the house that I feel like I have to make egg salad, a favorite of the kids that I rarely make because I detest peeling the eggs.

I was able to get everybody onto the back deck to paint wooden eggs, however! One must take one's successes wherever one can get them!

I experimented with staining an egg, and I LOVE it, and painting one galaxy-themed, which... well, I can say now that I've done it!

It is VERY important that I watch Jesus Christ Superstar on Easter, and usually I can wheedle another person or two into watching it with me. I tested everyone's patience even more this year by insisting on watching this Swedish arena production that I'd heard had some interesting acting choices for Jesus and Judas:

It DID have some interesting acting choices! Of course, it was also in Swedish... When Syd complained, I was all, "Well, I could always sing the lyrics along with them in English," and Syd was all, "Oh, yeah? Why don't you, then!"

Joke's on her, because I did! 

It's REALLY fun to hang out with me.

The fun thing about having emphasized the creation of handmade eggs for the kids' entire lives is that by now, we have a LOT of eggs. 

A LOT. OF EGGS.

Matt had the genius idea to actually, you know, *count* the eggs as he hid them this year, and... yeah, he hid 120 of them.

Unfortunately, after a full ten minutes of hunting--

--we only got back 109. Oops!

I guess we'll have a fun side quest while we mow the lawn this summer!

Some Easters, it's pouring. Some, it's freezing. Some, there's a global pandemic going on but at least the weather is gorgeous, sunny and warm, and when one finishes one's quest for Easter eggs (or, rather, gives up on one's quest for Easter eggs, as there are still 11 unfound eggs out there!), it's especially nice to just lie down on the warm driveway, a cat or two under your arm, and savor a day with nothing important to do other than eat candy, paint wooden eggs, and watch TV with your mom:

And if your Mom sneaks the opportunity to get the first family portrait she's managed since October--

--Well, every holiday has its own magic.