In addition to our religious celebrations this time of year, at Easter we celebrate springtime and the rebirth of the Earth after the long winter. Easter and springtime are times of renewal and fresh starts.
When my son was a little boy…maybe four or five, he asked me, “Mama, why do we have holidays?” At the time, I told him holidays were our way of celebrating things and that they gave us something to look forward to with our families and friends.
Now that I’ve had a few more years to think on it, I’ve decided that holidays are so much more. Life itself can be difficult and pretty mundane at times. We all have things we have to do that aren’t fun. Holidays break up the monotony of life and give us things to look forward to and things to plan for, and to talk about with others. They also give us a chance to reconnect with family members we may not get to see very often.
Holidays like Easter, provide us the opportunity to both honor and celebrate our religious beliefs as well as to be with and enjoy our families. The traditions around the various holidays give us all something to look forward to and to expect. When I was newly married, I remember thinking about the different holiday traditions my family practiced when I was growing up and deciding which ones to incorporate into my own family.
Sometimes our holiday traditions are passed down through our families…my grandmother’s and my mother’s crazy good banana pudding is a holiday staple in our family. Other times, traditions are created by unique experiences we share with people.
Sometimes people have really funny stories about how their family traditions came about. When my children were growing up, we would color Easter Eggs every year. Once the coloring was done, we would dump the colored egg dyes into the toilet and watch the different colors swirl together into new colors. The kids enjoyed that part so much the first year, that it became a tradition we did every year!
My son who asked that question about holidays so long ago, is married now with four children of his own. He and his wife have borrowed their favorite traditions from each of their birth families and have also established their own new family traditions. We will get to be with them this Easter. I have a large bag of plastic Easter eggs that I’ve saved since my children were small. I’m going to fill them with candy and coins and set up an Easter egg hunt for my grandchildren. Hopefully, that will be the beginning of a new tradition at my house that they will look forward to every Easter!