We celebrated Holy Week and Easter weekend by being very, very busy.
That always happens, though, doesn’t it? If normal weeks are busy then holiday weeks will feel extra busy. I feel a temptation to chastise myself, “I’m doing this wrong. We need to slow down, simplify, take in the season.”
But I also know that if the normal routine of laundry and dinner and making it to the bus stop on time is flattening you, adding “fill eggs with plastic tchotchkes for preschool” to my to-do list isn’t exactly going to create time in my schedule.
Now I roll my eyes at the temptation to feel guilty because holidays aren’t supposed to be “busy.” When just getting your family into the van is a 78-step process, of course holidays will be hectic. Hectic is the season. So, hey! Let’s embrace the season and get on with it! These eggs aren’t going to dye themselves!
Dyeing Easter eggs on Good Friday. We all had green and blue finger tips at the Good Friday church service. Just after I snapped this picture, Thomas said, “Today really is the perfect day!”
We dyed 48 eggs this year. 48!! Our chicken’s eggs made the prettiest deep hues.
Thomas’s masterpiece — his jade egg. He refused to tell anyone the “recipe” for the shade.
This year our Sunday was so busy I decided to do Easter baskets on Saturday.
This is completely a not-a-big-deal thing that inexplicably felt like a big deal. I had to choose between 1) breaking tradition and 2) having a really, really rushed Easter morning. I’ve never in my whole life done Easter baskets on Saturday. The Easter bunny comes on Easter Sunday and anything else is sacrilege. But oops, hold on, maybe the Easter baskets themselves are the sacrilege?
Then I decided all the over-thinking was ridiculous! As Mom, I get to decide this stuff. Saturday baskets this year it is!
The kids were ecstatic. Thomas immediately marked an extra day off his countdown-to-Easter and we never looked back.
Little Krieger bunnies doing a scavenger hunt on Easter Saturday to find their baskets. I didn’t even tell them to put on the bunny tails.
If there ever was a photo that summed up all my kids…Anna thinking she’s the leader and in charge, David actually doing all of the work, and Mary utterly consumed with unnecessarily managing Thomas.
They did it! This year Easter baskets had almost no candy (sorry kids, don’t blame me. Blame your braces.) but lots of toys and even a Sprite for each kid.
We had hot cross buns and berries for breakfast on Saturday, which no one really liked. Who knew hot cross buns have raisins? Ew!
After Easter baskets on Saturday morning, we went to a neighborhood Easter egg hunt. It’s so nice that events like this are happening again. Our last neighborhood Easter egg hunt was in 2019.
Easter morning was, as I predicted, really busy. I had to leave for church by 8:30 and even with moving things to Saturday, I still struggled to get out the door on time. We took a rushed family photo after church before joining Tom’s family for a celebratory lunch. When I changed out of my heels I had blisters on my toes. Later that evening, Tom and I went to a cocktail party to celebrate the resurrection. I would not, could not put my shoes back on. I had rolled my eyes at David wearing neon shoes on Easter Sunday, but my blistered toes made them look like the smart option.
I’m so grateful for Easter. Here we are — our fingers are still blue with dye, and my kid didn’t even button his shirt, and wow those high tops sure make a statement in our Easter photo! Here we are with our skin-and-soul-deep imperfections, to proclaim that Jesus lived, he died, and he rose again. Hallelujah! He is risen!
