A Different Easter

Easter under stay at home guidelines was obviously going to be a different type of holiday this year but I thought I was ready.  I would just have to adapt my normal activities.

First I decided I would need to mail my children their Easter basket contents.  So I planned ahead.  Since I was mailing the items and not going to the store except for essentials I decided to make my gifts.  I made homemade Easter cards.  I made homemade reusable produce bags to use at the grocery store when we are once again allowed to bring our own bags to the store.  I also made a towel boa.  It is a wearable dish towel that replaces the throw-the-towel-over-your-shoulder-while-working-in-the-kitchen-look.  I even customized it to match the previous quilt projects I had given the girls so their house could have a coordinated look.  I included a homemade owl pot holder too.  I only list all these items to show the amount of thought and time I put into the Easter gifts.  It just makes it all the harder to understand how I could have forgotten to include any candy.

For some reason, I had a mental block on the candy because not only did I not mail any to the girls and Heath, I did not make sure that the Easter Bunny had any in the house for Mike.  I knew I was in trouble when Mike starting asking about his candy on Saturday night.

Then to compound my lapse in judgement, our neighbors, the Hemkers, sent us a Happy Easter text greeting on Sunday morning showing all their Easter bunny loot and thanking us for their Easter card.  I fired back Easter greetings and mentioned that we had not had an Easter bunny visit and Mike was bummed.  According to their children, Allison and Hunter, of course the Easter bunny had visited us and we should look in our mailbox.  Which we immediately did.

This put Mike in such a good mood (or maybe he was just on a sugar high from all that Easter candy) that he went and got me some Easter daffodils.  Of course, he could not go to the store for these so he had to dig some wild ones out of the ground in the timber on his parent's property.  I was pleased though and we immediately planted them near the just planted Christmas tree in the front yard.  This should be the gift that keeps on giving as they will hopefully bloom again next Easter.

We even attended a sunrise Easter service this Easter.  It is the first time I have been to one in five years.  It was also the first time in my entire life that I attended in my pajamas.  Of course, it was raining out so our pastor had to conduct the service from his front porch and there was no music because he did not want to subject us to his singing.   Still, fifteen of us were greatly appreciative of this opportunity to worship on Facebook Live at 6:30 am.  (He also conducted a service later that morning for the non early risers.  Emily Peterson was one of those.  I bet Pastor Curtis was surprised to have someone from California attending his service.)

So even though this Easter was different, I am hoping some of the activities we did start new traditions.  I think the Easter bunny has found a great hiding place in the mailbox and I loved going to a sunrise service once again.  We will just have to see what next year brings.