Growing up Easter was new clothes and candy. That’s what I remember the most anyway. I always got, at a minimum, a new sport coat if not a suit to wear for church. That’s when you got those Sunday go to meetings’ clothes. Going to church when I was young was required. You had to dress up, shirt and tie with a sport coat, your good shoes and your hair combed. The girls wore a dress and a hat. Older girls, those thought to be grown up, wore white gloves as well. Sometimes, especially at Easter and Christmas even the little girls wore gloves. It was a formality.

I remember after church services on Easter we all gathered on the lawn for pictures immediately afterward. Reverend Davis would be out there as well. Everyone in their finest outfits, smiling, and posing for the camera. Getting your picture taken back then was somewhat of a big deal. There was no instant photographs, no selfies or anything like that. Getting that film developed was expensive! You didn’t waste film on just any old thing! It was always a special occasion.

When I woke up on Easter morning the easter bunny had always been to my house. Chocolate rabbits, jelly beans, and a variety of other candies would be nestled in that grass filled basket. That continued even when I was older, in high school. I continued that tradition with my own kids, the grandkids, and this year the great granddaughter. I did buy my great granddaughter a new outfit for Easter but it isn’t a church outfit. The Easter bunny lives on though, and I’m grateful for that.

I did go to church and knew the whole story of Jesus and the resurrection. That wasn’t lost in all the excitement of Easter, just as his birth wasn’t lost at Christmastime, although on the back burner when candy and presents were being offered. As a kid I never questioned what the Easter bunny had to do with any of that. That was a theme that was saved for a later time, when you were old enough to understand things like the creation of life and birth. The whole egg thing. Yeah, that was part of “the talk” most of us got. Eggs and rabbits reproduce! A lot.

That was all a part of my childhood. It is what I remember and it gives me comfort when I think about it. Warm memories always do that. Dying the eggs was always fun. Remember trying to write on them with that little wax crayon? Sometimes it even worked. I would assemble those paper stands that came on the box the dye had come in. Carefully following the perforations and tucking the end in that little slot. I wasn’t allowed to eat any candy, no eggs before church. You really don’t want the kids all sugared up,

Mom understood that, even if I didn’t. After church, after the pictures had been taken and the stone rolled back on the tomb, we were free to eat that candy! Well, we did have to change out of our good clothes first. I remember having ham for Easter dinner although it wasn’t as big a deal as Thanksgiving dinner. No explanation why we had ham, I never thought about it either. I still don’t know.