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Easter Traditions<br />
Meet Easter Fun in the <strong>SCV</strong><br />
From Eggstravaganza to Easter Brunch, enjoy a colorful and tasty holiday.<br />
by Michele E. Buttelman • features and entertainment editor<br />
This year, Easter is on Sunday,<br />
<strong>March</strong> 27. Is your inner Easter<br />
Bunny dyeing to fill a plethora of<br />
Easter baskets with hip-hoppity<br />
fun?<br />
Easter celebrates the resurrection<br />
of Jesus Christ, and the date<br />
of Easter changes each year. The<br />
date is calculated as the first<br />
Sunday after the first full moon<br />
following the vernal equinox (the<br />
first day of spring).<br />
As Easter approaches it is now<br />
time to “hop” to it!<br />
Fill your Easter baskets with a variety of goodies, and don’t<br />
forget the simple joy of munching on a chocolate bunny<br />
this season.<br />
In addition, I’ve always enjoyed filling Easter baskets for my family. I love creating a<br />
nest with fake Easter grass and placing jelly beans, candy eggs and chocolate bunnies<br />
into the basket with a few other treats, as well, (movie tickets, gift cards and small<br />
trinkets).<br />
Is there any better way to start Easter morning than a backyard egg hunt? Or chomping<br />
the ears of the chocolate Easter bunny nestled in your Easter basket?<br />
Some traditions are just too much fun to ever give up, no matter what your age! In<br />
our neighborhood we hold a multi-family egg hunt where everyone participates,<br />
young and old.<br />
It’s a great chance to share Easter with<br />
neighbors whose children have outgrown<br />
Easter Egg hunts, and don’t yet have grandchildren.<br />
Dyeing Easter eggs is a fun tradition in my family. We usually buy several different<br />
egg dyeing kits from traditional, pastel colored eggs to glitter eggs. This year I’ve<br />
spied a “golden egg” kit that I think will be different and fun.<br />
Create special Easter memories by dyeing your own<br />
eggs and hiding them in the backyard.<br />
Fun Easter Facts:<br />
The tradition of decorating eggs dates back to the<br />
ancient Persians, known as Zoroastrians, who<br />
painted eggs for Nowrooz, their New Year’s celebration<br />
during the spring. On the first day of spring,<br />
they would give each other an egg dyed red.<br />
Thirteenth-century Macedonians were the first<br />
Christians known to use colored eggs in their Easter<br />
celebrations. Crusaders<br />
returning<br />
from the Middle<br />
East spread the<br />
Decorate blown eggs and hang them<br />
on branches arranged in a vase for a<br />
special Easter Egg Tree.<br />
Children will love to make “stained<br />
glass window” art.<br />
custom of coloring eggs, and Europeans then began<br />
to use colored eggs to celebrate Easter and other<br />
holidays.<br />
The ancient Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans<br />
all used colored eggs to celebrate spring. Among<br />
the Chinese, parents of newborn children still present<br />
gifts of colored eggs to their friends as a sign<br />
of new life.<br />
Easter Egg hunts and egg rolling are also longstanding<br />
traditions. The first White House Easter<br />
Egg Roll occurred in 1878 and the tradition continues on the Monday after Easter.<br />
Easter Crafts:<br />
A fun family craft project is to create an “Easter Egg Tree.”<br />
First “blow out” your eggs. This can be accomplished in many ways.<br />
You can find dozens of YouTube videos demonstrating tricks and<br />
techniques for egg blowing.<br />
As a child I remember using a hobby knife and piercing a small hole in the large end<br />
of the egg. This was followed by inserting the end of a large paper clip that had been<br />
straightened to make the hole a little larger. Next, I did the same procedure at the<br />
small end of the egg. Then, I would put my mouth to the egg and actually blow the<br />
contents out into a bowl.<br />
Today, I just use one of those blue, bulbous baby aspirators to push the egg contents<br />
out of the egg. I placed the aspirator over one hole and squeezed repeatedly until<br />
the egg emptied into the bowl.<br />
After you have collected your empty eggs, dye the shells a variety of festive colors.<br />
You can also add decals, ribbon and sparkles, too.<br />
Next, you need to affix something that will allow the egg to hang from your tree.<br />
I’ve seen videos and online suggestions using needle and thread (making use of a<br />
magnet to get the needle out the bottom of the egg), as well as fancy and expensive<br />
“hangers.” I just glue some ribbon or string on top of the egg, cover it with a decorative<br />
decal and I’m done.<br />
Next, find a clear vase and fill it with sturdy dead branches. Make sure there are<br />
enough branches to hang plenty of eggs. I like to spray paint my branches white, gold<br />
or silver, depending on the color scheme I am using. One year I painted each branch<br />
a different pastel color.<br />
Fill the vase with colored glass pebbles (sometimes called glass jems, or glass<br />
“blobs”), washed pebbles or small river rocks to hold the branches in place.<br />
Hang your eggs.<br />
Viola! You now have a beautiful and colorful Easter table centerpiece.<br />
Another fun Easter craft project for children is to construct tissue paper “stained<br />
glass windows.”