Easter Traditions: New, Copied, Old

Last year I was in Santiago, Chile for several months and spent Easter with an eclectic group of people from all over the globe. Can I tell you that those who did not grow up in the U.S. think Easter traditions are BONKERS. Faith and religion aside, the Easter bunny, dying eggs, hiding eggs – really, what were we thinking? But whatever, that’s the great thing about culture and tradition – in them there is an excuse for ridiculous things to be made fun and celebratory!

A year ago Easter, I forced a friend to dye eggs with me and then we hid them in our Santiago apartment, invited all our international friends over for brunch, and made them hunt for eggs in our apartment. Yes, they thought we were completely BONKERS, but OH YES did they ever have fun. Plus, they certainly enjoyed the deviled eggs we made for them(I hadn’t realized what a very Americana thing deviled eggs are until then).

This year Easter(and I know I’m a little late to be posting about Easter) I again forced adult friends to dye eggs with me(OH YES, I dare say they enjoyed themselves in the end). Then, I played Easter bunny the next day and both kids and adults hunted for eggs in our yard. And OH YES!, to my great pleasure all parties involved enjoyed the egg hunting immensely.

Now to the photos above and my traditions:

NEW! I actually made this one up! While hiding real eggs on Easter is built into my DNA, plastic ones with candy is not – we never had these growing up, but I added them to our hunt this year and filled them with hershey kisses. After the egg hunt the kids opened up their eggs and unwrapped their kisses. I had peanut butter cookie dough ready to go so we smashed our kisses into balls of dough and made peanut butter kiss cookies – great activity and a fun treat all in one. I think I shall continue this for years to come!

COPIED! Another blog I read (and am high fiving) suggested these little paper carrots. I made them and placed them in each of the kid’s Easter baskets. I’m a dork, but I love this kind of thing.

OLD! My grandma’s cheesy potatoes and ham – my family’s Easter dinner staples, shared with my Seattle family.