The Easter That Never Was

Every year Grandma and Grandpa Droubay have an Easter egg hunt for the grandkids on the Saturday before Easter Sunday.

And every year Nana has an Easter egg hunt on Easter Sunday.

These are great traditions.  The kids love both egg hunts and I'm so glad they have these fun memories.

BUT...

This always left Easter morning at our house a bit anticlimactic.  In the past I've done a little egg/candy hunt but it's not as fun without the cousins and we're always rushed to get to church.  The kids either eat too much candy and won't eat breakfast or I take away their candy to eat later and they're mad at me.

Bottom line:  Easter is not very fun at our house.

This year was different.  We decided to start a new tradition.

The Passover Seder meal.

Jeff and I had a great time shopping and preparing for this meal.

 (We were realistic and substituted some food items--the kids needed to eat it after all.)

Menu:  *Unleavened bread (pita) and olive oil with cracked pepper

*Walnuts, crushed and cooked with apples, butter and brown sugar

*Bitter herbs (Romain lettuce dipped in ranch dressing)

*Celery

*Hard-boiled egg

*Roasted chicken (instead of lamb)

*Sparkling grape juice (instead of wine)

The kids LOVED it.

We talked about the symbolism of each part of the meal and what the Passover means for the Jewish people.

I got out my hand-painted goblets that we NEVER use and Jake said, 

"Whoa!  This is the fanciest meal I've ever eaten!"

We ended the evening by watching The Ten Commandments on TV.

This was a huge success and it will be our new Easter tradition.

Now, about the Easter that never was.

It's funny now and I want to remember it, but at the time we were all miserable.

Remember this cute little guy?  

In 2008, Easter was at the end of March.

I was 8 1/2 months pregnant with baby boy Hambone.

I had contracted Influenza B  (aka: the flu--the one the doctors always urge us to get flu shots for--especially pregnant women).

I have never been so sick.  I was bedridden with a fever, chills, cough, you-name-it, for weeks.

The entire rest of the family all came down with it as well.

They were all able to take Tamiflu and we spent 400$ on prescriptions for everyone.

I couldn't take it because I was pregnant.

We were miserable.

Easter Sunday was during this time.

We didn't even acknowledge that it ever happened.

No hunts.

No baskets.

No decorations.

No candy.

Nothing.

About 6 weeks later, out of the blue, Josh says,

"Hey!  We missed Easter!  We didn't do Easter!  Wasn't it Easter or something?"

Oh well...

(Lesson learned. We now get our flu shots every year.)