Herbs Versus Bunnies

Although Christmas is by far, my most favorite holiday, Easter takes a respectable second place. For the past few years now, me and my family have very simple and rather symbolic Easter celebrations with only a small dinner, but what makes me adore this holiday are all the memories that I still have from celebrating Easter when I was a child.

All of the major holidays always took place at my grandmother`s home in the country. It was a tradition for the whole family to come together from the farthest corners. While our family wasn`t huge, it was a great to see aunts and cousins that live far away and don`t come visit often. This made Easter even more special. As soon as my family`s car rolled onto the drive way, the work began. My parents would always help to clean up the entire house and get all the bedrooms ready before all the other family members arrived. I didn`t take part in the cleaning process simply because I always had a more important, and probably a more fun job.

My grandmother would never use the store-bough stickers or other applications to decorate the eggs. She said that she didn't have these growing up and that the bunnies on those stickers looked really scary to her. Instead, she had an alternate and a really fun way of decorating eggs that she shared with me. We would go to the garden and collect a bunch of herbs and grasses that had interesting shapes and bright colors. Anything from parsley to dill to cloves would be what we looked for. Then, we would take them home, put them on a windowsill and let them dry in the sun for a little while. Once the herbs were dry and ready, we would take eggs one by one, cover them with the herbs and wrap eggs in pieces of panty house material. We would tie the ends so that the herbs wouldn't fall of. Once the eggs were covered we would place them in a pot with hot water and dye, and boil the eggs for a little while. My grandmother would always be the one to put the eggs in the boiling dye just to keep me from burning off my fingers, but she would always let me be the one to take the panty house off of the eggs and see what kind of a decoration the herbs have made on the shells. The anticipation to finally see the finished product always made me very excited.

While the whole family would collectively cook and get the table ready I would still feel like the most important person, because I was the one who decorated the eggs for the whole family to enjoy. Food is an important part of any holiday, especially Easter, but the eggs were not only for eating. The big and small, older and young would come together and play games centered around the decorated eggs. We either competed in egg rolling races, or eggs smacking competitions. Every person would choose an egg and then smack another person`s egg with their own to see which one would break. The person who`s egg wouldn`t crack would be the winner.

As I look back and think about my childhood, I realize that the simplest things can create the most happiness. Easter with the whole family is definitely one of those happy memories that always makes me smile when i happen to think about it. Therefore, when I think of Easter I don't necessarily think of it from a religious perspective, although that is an important aspect of Easter as well. I view it as the perfect chance to get even closer to the ones you love by doing fun activities together, such as cooking, setting the table, or just talking. The conversations you have while decorating those eggs, or the jokes you tell each other while washing the dishes after the Easter feast ,will make amazing memories worth to remember.