Dear Addie,
After a week of soaking up the sun’s rays & dodging icebergs in the freezing cold OBX waters (just kidding, it wasn’t a titanic worthy moment, but that water was super cold!), our spring break ended on a high note with the Easter holiday. A holiday of great importance in our faith symbolizing hope, renewal, and new life. Now having said that you’re probably wondering why it’s traditionally celebrated domestically with a bunny and eggs? Overthinking most things as I do, you’re probably even wondering a bit deeper about these characters since bunnies don’t even lay eggs? Sounds Sketchy right?!
Well, here are some short answers, in our faith we celebrate hope, renewal, and new life through Jesus’ resurrection during Easter. It’s also suiting that Easter marks the beginning of spring when we bear witness to new life all around us with the plants and trees coming back to life after lying dormant through the winter. It’s quite literally a beautiful reminder of life blooming right before our eyes and all around us. The egg actually symbolizes new beginnings in many parts of the world and some cultures even take decorating them to a very extreme level! Like way more extreme than using markers and our battery-operated egg spinning kit – although that thing is pretty cool and way less messy for what it’s worth. Now you’re probably thinking “Ok, that all sounds good but where does the bunny come in?” Well, from my peaked curiosity on the subject now and google at my fingertips it seems to be that the Easter bunny actually goes back to a German tradition of the “Easter Hare” bringing eggs to all the good children. Hares and rabbits had a long association with spring so apparently, it was the animal of choice here. When the German immigrants settled in Pennsylvania in the 18th and 19th centuries, they brought this tradition with them, and looks like we were all like – hey, sounds good!
Now Easter in our house is not just waking up to baskets of treats and a cute egg hunt anymore. Through the years we’ve made things a bit more involved with our cute egg hunt turning into an epic scavenger hunt with riddles that all of you kids have to solve together to find small gifts hidden about the house and outside. The gifts in question are always something we can do together as a family and then ultimately your basket of treats at the end. While you might not always understand the riddles because your way of thinking is very black and white, you are following along from place to place right there with your brother and sister, anxiously awaiting to see what gift has been discovered. This year you celebrated another first in your life when the clues led you to what would be your first piñata and (a first Easter piñata for everyone – hey if we can have a bunny and eggs why not a seahorse piñata?!)
As we sat that evening relaxing after a day of family fun I got to thinking about traditions, how they start, how they evolve, and couldn’t help but wonder if one day you’d be helping your nieces and nephews solve riddles to find an Easter piñata? You never know, it could happen.
Addie, there is no denying that our life is challenging, unconventional and maybe even odd to some, but even in all our loudness, messiness & stickiness (mentally and physically) this journey tends to come with, we will always find joy in doing things together as a family and enjoying traditions we’ve created.
Mark it, Easter piñata is a thing.
Happy Easter Ad.
Love,
Mom
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