EASTER CELEBRATIONS or not?

All these people eating lamb for Easter! I’ve never cooked or eaten lamb because my mother didn’t like it and the smell turns my stomach.
I always served up eggs on Good Friday as I don’t eat fish and never have.

We'd low key day. Mass and the Pope's Easter blessing - uplifting. Our family enjoyed roast lamb. The children loved their eggs.

I pray your Easter was lovely, Bea65.

My parents weren't churchgoers but we always had roast lamb on Easter Sunday. I think I remember a few people sending us Easter cards occasionally but it wasn't really a thing in our household. We painted blown out eggs at school and of course I received Easter eggs from my parents and a couple of other relatives. The village bakers was open for a few hours in the morning and I'd be sent off with a shilling (I think) to get a dozen hot cross buns. They were fresh out the oven and we'd slather them in butter when I got home.

watermeadow

This is the first Easter when I haven’t been to church. None of my church-going family is home and I won’t go alone. I need moral support to get through the service nowadays. The changes from the services I grew up with make me so uncomfortable that I don’t want to go.
I feel guilty and sad that I’m missing something important.

Same here, due to post surgery I’ve not attended church and its made me doubly sad as would have placed flowers on mom and dad in church yard. watermeadow don’t feel too guilty- know it’s easier to say than do …💐

We didn’t do a lot for Easter when I was a child. I’d go to church with my Grandma and Grandad and I’d be given an Easter egg from Grandparents and Parents. Easter Sunday lunch will have been lamb and we always had fish on Good Friday. Cards or decorations weren’t a thing for us then.

Now, I put a few decorations out to cheer the house, we have some chocolate and I make a simnel cake. We eat fish on Good Friday and have lamb Easter Sunday. We also go to church (but go most Sundays, actually). I send a few cards to close family.

We had a tradition of celebrating Easter with my father's parents. (We didn't usually see them at Christmas until we children were older, because we are in Canada and they lived almost 400 miles away. Weather can often be poor at Christmas in their area, but Easter was typically nicer.) We would always go to the Good Friday service, and on Saturday Mum would get out the egg decorating kits she had bought that year and we would colour eggs. Easter morning always started with an egg hunt for us kids. We would each have our Easter basket (we brought them with us), but there would always be mini chocolate eggs hidden all over the house for us to find. Not too long ago I learned from Mum that that was always courtesy of Grandpa. It seems he had just as much fun HIDING the eggs as we did FINDING them! After that we would attend Mass.

Interesting your thoughts keeping quiet We never celebrated Easter at all. No eggs, no nothing. I do recall everything being closed and desperately trying to feel sad on the appropriate day.

I hear people wishing each other a Happy Easter and no doubt the follow up question of Did you Have a Good Easter?

watermeadow

This is the first Easter when I haven’t been to church. None of my church-going family is home and I won’t go alone. I need moral support to get through the service nowadays. The changes from the services I grew up with make me so uncomfortable that I don’t want to go.
I feel guilty and sad that I’m missing something important.

It's okay to stay home if the service makes you uncomfortable - me too. The celebration comes from within and is in your heart. It is an important day to you and I pray you find joy, even in the spring song of a bird in the garden. And if no garden, then a Happy Easter message sent to you from me, with love. 🙏

We had an Easter egg hunt for my visiting adults sons. They were too quick so I may have told them there was one they hadn't found which was in my pocket. We will be having a roast dinner. I have also discovered that the easter egg I bought for myself is full of popping candy. Not sure how I will get in with that!

I will add new clothes were for Whitsuntide not Easter...

Here's my response:

Easter cards are quite a new thing for me, I got one this year. I don't often send them or receive them.

Easter egg, just one from my daughter but I don't want a lot of chocolate any more. I bought them for my family, nothing fancy but the grandkids are not too old to go on an egg hunt!

We didn't have egg hunts when I was young- I think they are an American invention.

As a child we either had a Buttons or a Smartie egg- I used to pick at the chocolate to make it last longer.

Decorations? Yes, again a new thing and a bit commercial but hey- they cheer up the house. My granddaughter helped me put them up yesterday and they will stay up for a while.

Food- yes. I'm doing slow cooker lamb which I will share with my son later. I invited my family round earlier and we had bacon, egg and sausage sandwiches with two cakes people baked. Not trad I suppose but I handed out chocolate eggs to everyone, there were flowers and general good humour. I did it because I would have spent the rest of the day on my own otherwise. My son is working and I have no idea when he'll be home. I'm now enjoying my second glass of wine.

New traditions? I can't always but usually dip in to Classic FM Hall of fame over the weekend- I've done this ever since it started so I've made it a Easter tradition even though it drives my family mad1

Religion? Yes, I went to Mass this morning with family. Church busy and full of flowers, cheer and good humour as well as wonderful Easter hymns- you can't get more traditional than that- it has been happening for 2000 years after all!

This is my offering to this thread...

Happy Easter Bea65 and everyone. I think I must be the only one here that had ham and not lamb. We would have special dresses to wear to mass, easter basket filled with chocolates and always a lovely supper.

Now, I will spend the day alone and in quiet reflection, gratitude and prayer.

Oreo, I'll see if I can find it

This is the first Easter when I haven’t been to church. None of my church-going family is home and I won’t go alone. I need moral support to get through the service nowadays. The changes from the services I grew up with make me so uncomfortable that I don’t want to go.
I feel guilty and sad that I’m missing something important.

Grandmabatty

I always got a new outfit for Easter and have a photo of me and my best friend in our Easter outfit, straw hat and white gloves. I have kept up the tradition of buying a new outfit for my dgss. I used to deliver a bouquet of spring flowers to the women in the family but that's cut to my aunt and daughter.

That sounds so nice😃 do you have a pic to post of you in your little straw hats? What a sweet tradition.

lovetopaint....that's great news for you...

I remember my mum would make us hard boiled eggs which we painted and rolled down the hill, just as I did with my children and grand children, never see children doing that now
I did bake a cake yesterday and decorated it with mini chocolate eggs, I'm now sitting at my computer finishing off what eggs are left in the packet, it's a lovely day here in sw scotland , blue sky...I wish everyone a lovely easter

Easter was important when I was a child and still is. Attended a very moving Good Friday Service and an uplifting Sunday service today at my lovely village church. So good to see so many people there and to share in the joy of this wonderful day.

The only person I used to send Easter cards to - she was a churchgoer and a truly kind woman - died a few months ago.

Easter was always a special time for DH and me. It was when we actually got together, and church was the last place he went to before he died.
I haven’t given Easter eggs for a while now. Sometimes money, but this year they are all grown up and away. I’ve been invited to lunch today with a new friend, so that will be a change.

Yes a new outfit paid for by my granny. Little straw hat with flowers on it and white gloves for Church. Easter cards from the family. No sweets during Lent so loved the Easter eggs even more. Tomorrow my dd is doing a family meal. Usually roast lamb but tomorrow it’s going to be a buffet as the numbers have grown. My grandsons and their partners will be there with their parents. Also my grandson and his lovely partner told me today they are expecting a baby.(Now the size of a strawberry). How’s that for a new beginning? Happy Easter everyone.

Nothing special now that the grandchildren are all grown up.
Just a quiet weekend here. But I have bought myself an Easter egg.

I remember buying a linen suit and silk blouse one year for Easter many years ago, when we were going away.

It snowed and I was freezing!

We never decorated or had new clothes for Easter. I remember once going to church on Easter Sunday. I suspect it was because we were on holiday so my mother didn't have to spend the morning cooking lunch. I was an only child so Easter lunch was just me, my parents and my grandmother. My husband and I spent several Easters in Italy and that was a great improvement. We would go to church in the morning, which got us Brownie points with the hotel owner's mother. The church was always absolutely packed and the congregation were always so friendly. Then back to the hotel for a six or seven course meal which lasted the rest of the afternoon!

Quiet contemplation, tomorrow lunch with family and Easter eggs, celebrating new beginnings.