An Easter Tail

Welcome back to our continuing saga.  With Easter just around the corner, I thought it would be fun to share some memories of our first Easter together as a blended family.  I am pouring myself a hot cup of Peaches and Cream black tea while we visit.  I highly recommend it. Please sit down and relax while we visit together.

No other holiday set the differences between our families more starkly than Easter, which was our first holiday together. Thankfully we share the same religious beliefs concerning Easter, that Jesus Christ actually experienced a resurrection after his death on the cross.  No problem there. We both love to attend resurrection services at our local church.  So we were good there as well.  But that was where the similarities ended in regard to how we chose to celebrate this festive occasion.

I had gone out and purchased a giant ham, potatoes, yams, asparagus, and all the ingredients neccessary to prepare a fabulous lemon chiffon pie for my new family, when suddenly my phone rang.  It was my new sister in law who wanted to know what time we would meet her on Sunday afternoon for the annual wienie roast in the hills overlooking the farm. I hadn’t heard anything about a wienie roast, I informed her.  “No problem”,  she said.  “Just bring a couple packages of hotdogs and buns, and join us on the hill.”  Dan knew the spot she explained.

Wienie roast on the hill…hmmmm.  Not sure how that ties in with Easter, but I wanted to be a good sport, this being my first year living in Central Oregon and wanting to make a good impression on my in-laws.  My kids, however were not nearly as agreeable.  They wanted to do things the way we always used  to do.  Whatever that meant.  We never did things the same twice anyway.  I encouraged them to give it a try, which they begrudgingly agreed to do. 

So all was well, until later that afternoon when Dan suggested we start dying the Easter eggs for the egg hunt.  “Who are we doing an egg hunt for?” I asked.  “The kids”, he answered. 

“You mean our kids?”, I asked in shock. 

“Of course”, he replied.

“But aren’t the kids a little old for that? “  Between us we had 7 kids at the time.  The youngest was 11, and the rest were teenagers.

“Youré never too old for an egghunt”, he informed me. 

Well I was pretty sure my 3 children would not agree with that statement.  And considering I had already broke the news about the wienie roast, I was a little concerned I’d have a mutiny on my hands if I forced them to get up early and hunt for boiled eggs.  Thankfully I was able to talk Dan into letting me pick up some plastic eggs and filling those with candy and money.  Dan was very reluctant to break off from his long held traditions of hunting for decorated boiled eggs.  But thank God he conceded in this one area. 

Early Easter morning we bribed the kids to wake up and hunt for the Easter eggs that the Easter bunny had hidden in the yard.  My poor city slicker kids were in absolute shock. The Elliott kids were used to this, so they were great cheerleaders to my 3. We finally managed to get everyone out there to search for the hidden eggs.

Secretly, I think my kids kinda liked it.  They must have collected at least $1.32 between the 3 of them, not to mention a few lucious hard boiled eggs too!

After the egg hunt, we dressed for church and heard the familiar story of Christ’s resurrection which truly never gets old to me,  But always more wonderful and endearing. How the King of the universe could be so humble and lay His own life down so that I would not have to be punished for the ignorant sins I’ve committed over the course of my lifetime.  Why was He silent while humans slapped and mocked Him?  He had the power to end His own suffering, but chose to give His life a ransom for us instead. It’s an incredible story.  It will never grow old to me. His humility, His kindness, His long suffering at the hands of wicked men confounds me. And I cry always.  I do cry at Easter.  But then I rejoice, cause I know it was all part of a magnificent plan.  The plan worked, and is still working.  And I am a part of His plan!  Now that’s a reason to celebrate!

After church we head out to picnic site for our “traditional” wienie roast….Elliott style.  the word “picnic” has always struck a cord of terror in my heart. But now more than ever. This is a picnic out in the boondogs with no bathrooms. It means we should be taking our 4-wheeler, but since we don’t have one, we’ll scratch up my cute little Honda instead.  It means  sitting  around freezing in the early Spring wind, trying to think of something to say while cooking cheap dogs on sticks. It means being stuck on location until my husband is ready to leave…some 3 or 4 hours later. 

Well, things haven’t changed much in the past 14 years.  We still have that traditional wienie roast every year, like it or not.  “Nothing says resurrection Sunday like wienie’s on a stick”,  says my oldest son, now 30.  Dan  still even tries to hide Easter eggs for our adult kids.  Little did I know that Easter is truly his favorite holiday of all.  He absolutely LOVES to hide Easter eggs! Although none of our kids willingly participate anymore, we have always been able to find a few volunteers to search for Dan’s hidden eggs. The Sibley kids, the kids I do respite care for, and now we have 5 wonderful grandkids to hunt for Grandpa Dan’s eggs.

Yes, we will hunt eggs again this year, and roast wienies.  And yes, we will go to church and hear, once again, the most incredible love story the world has ever known. And yes, I will cry again, as I do every year.  Not because I have to go on another picnic, but because Jesus loves me so much.  I have so much to celebrate! 

Blessings-

Tea Lady Darla