Prior to moving to the desert, my husband and I would go for a picnic on Easter to mark the start of nicer weather. This is when we lived up north and the weather could vary wildly on Easter Sunday. Sometimes it would cold and rainy, sometimes it’d be pleasantly warm, and one year it was almost 90 degrees.
This year the five of us are having Easter dinner in our dining room, complete with the new dining room chairs that arrived this week. I’d say that’s worth celebrating.
Since Easter is a Christian religious holiday, I can’t help but think about my religion in my upbringing. I’d best describe the experience as casual Methodist. Aside from the prayer before supper every night, we didn’t really talk about it that much. There was a time period where my sister’s kindergarten teacher, who was married to the minister of a church down the road that was decidedly not Methodist, convinced my mother that the family should go to their church. That went well for a little bit. It was my only experience with “Vacation Bible School” that seemed a lot like school during summer break. The minister and wife took four elementary aged boys to Marineland in Niagara Falls for a day trip. That was fun. We had a prayer circle in the parking lot. But then my sister and I were told we couldn’t go to heaven because we were “sprinkled” and not “dunked” when we were baptized and Mom promptly pulled the plug on that. We resumed going to the Methodist church in the village on holidays and special occasions. Some in the congregation were judgey because we lived out in the farmland but we made due. My grandmother always had a problem with the fact the church paid the organist; before the closer Methodist church shut down she had volunteered to play the organ for many years.
Easter wrapped up what I thought of as the “Holiday Trifecta” when we’d going from eating at the dinner table inside and start having family picnics as the state park once in a while. As a kid that was more fun for me.
But I always enjoy spending time with family on occasions like this.
