HAPPY EASTERI love the Easter

HAPPY EASTER


I love the Easter story in the Bible. It is precious and beautiful and gives me hope for a life after this one.

I grew up with not so much always hearing the story of Jesus and his resurrection on Easter Sunday, but at almost any time of the year. On Easter, we mostly got Easter baskets when we were kids at home, and I envied my friends who got clothes as gifts on Easter. However, as best I can recall, Mom made us girls Easter dresses. Some of them I liked; maybe even most of them. There was an occasional dress that I disliked -- Mom's taste was quite a bit different than mine. (When we would look at patterns in the pattern books, I always wanted dresses with lots of ruffles, while Mom's conclusion was invariably: "Too much work.")

I followed the family pattern and got Easter baskets for my kids, filled with fake grass and lots of candy. And then I wondered why J.D. was having extensive dental work done at the age of 5.

I think I ordered Harry and David baskets for the grandkids last year, but this year I sent cards. With the economy as it is, I couldn't justify spending so much money on Easter goodies and besides, there's that dental thing still.

I didn't grow up experiencing a big family Easter dinner, and my late husband Steve apparently didn't either, because we never had one in our home. I think it's a nice tradition for people who do have one. Certainly, Jesus' resurrection is something to celebrate.

My Easter today is quiet. There is a lot of list conversation about it online, and I received an e-mail from my neighbor across the street, wishing me a happy Easter and telling me that she and her husband had hosted an Easter egg hunt for their grandkids there yesterday. I hadn't noticed so they were apparently fairly quiet about it. What a nice thing to do, and it was also sweet of her to also write and tell me about what they had done.

I have been in the mood to celebrate my Easter with fried ham steaks and buttermilk pancakes with unsweetened blackberry jam this weekend. (The blackberry jam is yummy -- better than the maple syrup that sends my blood sugar skyrocketing -- and I was rewarded this morning with lower blood sugar than I've had in a while.)

This morning may have been a bit wet for those in the area holding Easter sunrise services. It is raining just lightly; I don't know how it was when the sun came up. One place that used to have sunrise Easter services was the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm east of Woodburn, Oregon. I had never attended their service, although I had heard about it from a young friend from church, who said her family always went to it. I didn't notice anything about a service at their site this morning, so maybe that has been discontinued.

I need to catch up on my Easter-oriented e-mail, on my various lists, so I will head on back to my Yahoo account and do that, praying in the meantime that Yahoo will cooperate today, where it seemed to have a few little glitches yesterday.