"Supposed To" Is In the Eye of the Beholder
I don't know if everybody does this, but I've realized that I form my ideas about how holidays are "supposed" to be celebrated based on how I celebrated them as a kid. Christmas Eve is supposed to be a big deal, for example, because early in life I spent it at my Aunt's house.
Easter is supposed to be an even bigger deal. Fancy dresses, church, flowers, egg hunts at grandma's ... there's a whole Thing I have built into my memory that I use to compare to the now.
The now, however, is very different. There are lots of reasons, but I think the main one is that Alexis and I usually fly solo for Easter. The husband works every year, which is fine, but it throws off that Thing in my head.
This year I decided to let Alexis take the lead and tell me how Easter is supposed to be done according to whatever is in her head. I mean, I already had the things I've done other years planned for repeat, but I didn't have a plan for the entire day. I left that up to her.
First there was the usual Easter egg hunt. The Bunny hides eggs overnight all over the place and Alexis spends the first few minutes of being awake trying to find them. I spend those minutes wishing I was asleep, but that's a whole other thing.
After that, Alexis decided eggs needed to be colored.
It wasn't until she was dying eggs that Alexis remembered something from previous years. In other years, tiny little Easter eggs have magically appeared in the fairy garden a few weeks before the holiday. Those magical Easter eggs are stolen by the Easter Bunny and replaced with lollipops on the big day.
The magic happened again. Fortunately. The second Alexis remembered previous years, she looked out the window and was delighted to find the bright treats.
But then things veered into an all new direction. Given the power to choose to spend the rest of the day any way she wanted, Alexis chose to go to PNC Park and watch a Pirates game.
All in all, it was a pretty solid combination of traditions remembered and traditions created. There definitely is nothing wrong with spending the day at the ballpark, enjoying the sun and 70 degrees.
But I still think it's super interesting that Alexis' "supposed to" looks so very different from my own.
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
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Since having children, my "supposed to" for Easter has involved being at Tyler's parents' house, coloring eggs on Saturday, waking up to baskets, dressing up for church, having a large-scale egg hunt outside, yadda, yadda.
This year, my cousins were in town and we stayed at our house in the burbs. The kids dressed themselves (just regular outside play clothes). No church. They all spent the afternoon playing with their cousins and the neighborhood friends. I didn't take many pictures, as I have in years past. It was a quiet day of family reflection and play.
I liked this Easter much better.
Our traditions are so much different with our kids because we don't live near our family. Every holiday when we were younger was always spent at a grandparents' house. It is a little fun to have control over your own family's traditions and just see where things end up. :)