Easter holidays
I have been thinking about what Easter means to me. More to the point, I have been thinking too much and confused myself in the process.
A and I are atheists. That is, religion has no place in our lives. Of course, I respect other people’s rights to religion, but I do not wish to have it inflicted on me. Therefore, Easter is no more than an excuse to eat lots of chocolate/worship chocolate! and not go to work. Then I started to think about the symbolism of Easter when I mused on activities I could do with the children over the weekend. Bunnies, chickens and eggs are all spring time symbols, symbols of fertility, new life and birth.
Only problem is that it’s Autumn here. Autumn is the season of harvest, thanksgiving, oranges and browns. So I looked up autumn pagan rituals to find that Pagans celebrate Mabon at the autumn equinox. Except the equinox is around the 22nd/23rd of March, so we were too late. I still liked the following ideas:
Honor family ancestors by recalling stories of those who have gone before us and looking at old photographs.
Since this is a harvest festival, collect food to donate to a food bank so that everyone can enjoy the benefits of a “harvest”. Thanksgiving isn’t just about saying “thank you”, it’s also important to give back for all you’ve received in life.
This is a time to celebrate wine making. Take a tour of a local winery or make your own.
Using apples to do stamp painting.
Making candles.
And my personal addition of doing a chocolate fondue.
Then we got a note from school to say that Willow’s class was learning about the Easter Bilby. Conservation, cool, I like it. Then I realised that Willow’s understanding of Easter was limited to the fact that she was going to get chocolate. So I bought her and Dexie a chocolate bilby each and 10 Cadbury Crunchie Eggs for a hunt on Sunday. I’m not going to complain about that!
While shopping I saw some Easter Egg dye at the continental shop and thought that looked like a great activity that would compliment the drawings and projects Willow had brought home from School. I was torn though, the egg is a spring time symbol, a symbol of fertility, not appropriate for the actual season we are in. I could see her getting confused quickly…
So you can see where I got to the stage that I’d over thought things.
I bought the dye anyway, I made up my mind in the time it took the shop assistant to get the free range eggs from the shelf.
Thus far, on Friday eve, we have done the chocolate fondue.
Yesterday while shopping I also bought a tiny fondue set and gave it a test run with a cheese fondue last night. The fondue itself was a dismal failure due to my inability to warm food gently rather than cook the bleep out of it. I thought it was yummy, despite looking more like finely chopped scrambled eggs than a rich, creamy cheese sauce. We dipped apple, turkish bread, boiled potato and carrot plus prawns in it.
Today we vegged out in the morning and spent the afternoon at a friend’s house. I rarely get to see S now that I am not working in the city, according to Google Maps she lives an hour’s drive from our place. So I thought I’d make the most of the day off and took the children down to see her. We had a great time catching up. S is such a beautiful person, I’m lucky to have her as a friend. We made 3 more dates in the next 3 months to catch up. I have to admit though, not having children herself, S’s house is far from childproof, which meant that conversations were often interrupted and cut short!
Tonight A cooked pork fillets and shallow fried carrot and potatoes. Then we had the chocolate fondue, with marshmallows, banana, strawberries and Madeira cake. It was very rich and very yummy.
Tomorrow I am catching up with another friend at the Easter Art and Craft Fair, so the egg dying, apple stamping and photo perusing might have to wait until later this weekend. I am planning to take Willow into work with me next Friday, so I will take some of her old clothes to donate and talk to her about being thankful for what she has because other people have far, far less.
So, that’s what this year’s Easter means to me, so far.
